Business Disaster Planning
Not
everything has changed since Sept. 11, when terrorists struck a
devastating blow against the United States by attacking innocent
civilians going about the business of leading their daily lives. The
"business of business" continues, although for some
enterprises with much less enthusiasm than before the attacks. What
had been a hard, often lean piece of a business operating budget has
suddenly become a major part of the operating expenses for many
firms: planning for disaster.
Those
of us in the disaster preparedness business have been involved with
many new customers who had never considered the loss of their income
due to someone simply opening a letter in their mail room.
Unfortunately, the role of disaster preparedness for business has
stepped far beyond hurricanes and floods. The loss of a business due
to the yellow police tape is now a glaring reminder that the
terrorists are striking at the very business core of our way of life.
While
many newcomers to the business world consider the requirement for
disaster planning "morbid," they soon find that not being
able to see the overall operating picture of a cost center or profit
center in the whole corporate plan will lead to obstacles that
will prevent recovering the business to a level of profitability.
A
simple business impact analysis, the first step in any recovery plan.
will determine what the loss of any given component of a business
means to the survivability of the business as a whole. Personnel
plans are as important as relocation of facilities or recovering the
computer room. A business recovery plan now considers the Information
Technology and Systems functions as an integral part of the
overall business recovery plan, not just the only or most important
component of the plan. The corporate disaster
recovery perception has now grown to accomplish all facets of a
business, from inventory replenishment to contacting family members
of employees as part of their integrated relocation plan.
At
least one firm even has added planning for emergency care for
employees' pets. Not being able to relocate a valuable team member
because no one could take care of a cat seems like a trivial problem,
but it has already happened.
Most
major corporations have a "hot site" under contract for
their computer services. A "hot site" has computer
mainframes and server farms ready to run the customers software as
soon as the customer arrives at the hot site with backup programs and
data. Now they are actively searching for emergency facilities just
for their office people, whether administration, sales or service.
Pretend
on Monday morning you can't get in your office or building. Pretend
the police or the FBI tell you no one is going inside your business
for weeks. Make all of your employees stand in the parking lot for
an hour, then tell them not come back to work.
It
won't take long to get the idea it could happen to any of us. .
George
Mindling © 2001