Alberta floods a vivid reminder of the growing relevance of business continuity plans
Alberta floods a vivid reminder of the growing relevance of business continuity plansWhen a deluge of rain and river water hit Calgary's streets last month, many of the city's businesses were forced to shut their doors and stop employees from coming into work. In fact, an estimated 180,000 workers that live in the downtown core and were forced to evacuate from their homes had no way of getting to work. Some of the country's largest energy corporations were forced to contact staff through social media channels to notify them that their workplaces were no longer accessible. Others asked available staff to log in remotely if they could do so safely. And others set up makeshift satellite offices outside the areas affected by the flood and asked workers to convene at the nearest one instead of overloading the computer systems by logging in remotely all at once.
While the cost of Calgary's floods to local businesses is still being tabulated, the overall economic cost is estimated to be more than $1 billion. Much of that will be related to business losses in the wake of the flood. Tragedies such as the Alberta flood bring to the fore more frequently the often overlooked issue of risk management and business continuity planning.
Over the last several years, there have been numerous examples of natural disasters that have taken companies by complete surprise with huge financial impacts. history. Businesses in the impacted regions, especially in New York and New Jersey where financial and IT assets are concentrated, had to rely on their business continuity and disaster recovery plans to stay open and competitive with rival companies in other parts of the world not impacted by the severe weather.
Over the last several years,wholesale mlb jerseys china, there have been numerous examples of natural disasters that have taken companies by complete surprise with huge financial impacts
The Japanese tsunami in 2011 caused the closure of many businesses, with ripple effects across the globe including a Hitachi factory north of Tokyo that makes 60% of the world's supply of airflow sensors; two plants accounting for 25% of the world's supply of silicon wafers for computer chips; and a Texas Instruments factory in Japan, accounting for about 10% of its revenues. Nihon Dempa Kogyo, the second largest maker of quartz components (with a roughly 20% share of the global market), turned to operations in Malaysia and elsewhere to compensate for damage at its plant in northern Japan, which assembles components for automotive applications. And Japan major automakers are expected to produce about 400,000 fewer vehicles domestically as a result of the earthquake and tsunami. The World Bank estimated economic cost of the event was US$235 billion, making it the costliest natural disaster ever.
Being able to leap into action when any type of disaster hits severe weather,cheap jerseys from china free shipping, natural disasters, security breaches, or anything that threatens a company's "always available" service requirements is a layers deep response that involves many arms of an organization. For those who get it wrong, there can be severe consequences to the financial health and reputation of a company, not to mention the trust level of its employees, customers or shareholders.
According to technology research organization, Gartner, business continuity is increasingly recognized as a mission critical function for most organizations. It predicts that by 2015,http://beautiful-you.biz/beautiful.html, 50% of Fortune 2000 enterprises will achieve a higher level of business continuity management (BCM) maturity than they have today.
The extensiveness of the plan should be driven by a company's risk profile, and plan elements must align with key risks. Having a good assessment framework in place means being able to identify risks, evaluate their probability and impact, and prepare a mitigation strategy to reduce the overall risk to an acceptable level. That means the scope for a particular business continuity plan can include everything from building a simple call tree to ensuring operations continue uninterrupted by holding full blown test scenarios that can be played out within the different areas of an organization.
A recent survey of global organizations conducted by Continuity Central found 35% of respondents expect spending on business continuity to be higher in 2013 than it was in 2012. A contributing factor may be that companies need to be prepared to respond to today's interconnected world a world in which the types of risks and the degree to which disasters impair business continuity, constantly shifts and evolves.
A few decades ago, local natural disasters and severe weather related events were probably at the top of the risk list. With globalization, technology and innovation, there are many potential risk areas and one event could have multiple impacts. A tsunami in Asia could affect business processes in North America by knocking out servers. For an organization that relies heavily on technology and online transactions,buy cheap jerseys from china, online security and cyber attacks become a key consideration.
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With this in mind, it's more important than ever to achieve a standardized business continuity program across the organization, including tools such as mass notification systems that allow the broadcasting of messages quickly and effectively to a wide base of employees. Such agile communication combined with having carefully constructed and regularly tested plans in place, are absolutely crucial to getting it right.
Agile communication combined with having carefully constructed and regularly tested plans in place, are absolutely crucial to getting it right
Of course,custom baseball jerseys canada, with any model or theory, it's critical to move from building to testing. When the pendulum swings from "planning the test" to "testing the plan," that's when organizations can truly understand if what they have in place will work in a real world disaster situation and address any necessary gaps.
During the Alberta floods, Sun Life Financial much like other companies had to focus on keeping its business up and running so customers could continue to receive the service they count on. Thanks to its business continuity program, the company knew its employees were safe,college football jerseys, and through an alternative worksite strategy, it was able to be productive. With constant monitoring of facilities, Sun Life was able to continue operating with no significant customer or business impact.
While having a solid business continuity plan in place won't stop a tsunami from wiping out a factory or obliterating inventory, it can help organizations get back on track more quickly. Performing annual reviews, setting and communicating priorities, testing multiple scenarios and approaches, and educating everyone in the organization on their responsibilities during a crisis are all means to minimize the damage an unforeseen event can cause. There's no shortage of information and real life examples available to help build a strong plan, and once health checks, gap executions, and working with audit, peer institutions and regulators are layered in, corporations can improve their levels of preparedness.
For any company focused on employee safety, service delivery and brand equity, strengthening business continuity and disaster recovery programs can't be a "we'll get to it" exercise it needs to be a "let's do it right" one. It could mean the difference between long term success, and unexpected failure.
Stevan Lewis is senior vice president of Enterprise Infrastructure and Chief Technology Officer at Sun Life Financial
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