Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery

Challenge

Since the tragic events of September 11th, there has been increased focus on the critical importance and challenges of Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery for all businesses. Stakeholders, from the Board of Directors to customers and employees, are concerned about how prepared a company is to operate continuously in the event of a disaster. They are asking serious questions:

What happens if our building, or an adjacent building, is blown up by terrorists?

Is the Board of Directors liable if the company can no longer conduct normal business?

Are the vendors that our company depends on prepared for a disaster?

What is the chain of command in the event of a disaster?

If there is a disaster, what do I do? Where do I go? Who should I call?

Unfortunately, most companies have given minimal thought to these questions. Many have a plan that covers a disaster event related to their data center so that it can continue to operate at a different location. However, only a few companies have comprehensive plans that incorporate the possibility of losing an entire building and all other functions critical to the company's operations. Additionally, the majority of companies do not have plans that encompass scenarios where a large employee population is lost as part of the disaster.

Solution

Our Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery service focuses on the preservation of your business, not just your technology. We concentrate on the business processes and how they produce value for a customer or client. The goal is to avoid the horror story where a company that backed up its technology still collapsed because it overlooked the likelihood of a facility or human resources failure. It is also critical in this downsized, locally empowered, flat-structured, interconnected, distributed and outsourced world, that a totally reactive "post-incident recovery" strategy is often an inefficient, if not impossible, way to deal with business outages. The first line of defense has shifted from sole reliance on reaction and recovery to a wider menu which includes prevention and enhanced reliability activities. The most effective strategy is a blend of both approaches tailored to your individual business needs.

Our definition of Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery is the uninterrupted availability of all of the resources necessary to operate your enterprise at an acceptable level. The focus is positive by concentrating on maintaining uninterrupted availability, not just reacting to disasters. It is also important to notice that the continuity of every business function may not, and probably will not, be necessary to meet the requirements for an acceptable level of operation. Degraded levels of service by certain business functions may also be acceptable, at least for a specified period. Therefore, in the event of some form of disruption, it is not imperative to maintain normal operation for all aspects of your business. However, it is absolutely imperative to maintain acceptable operations. The meaning of the term "acceptable" can vary dramatically with the business, the required cost, and with company objectives.

We work together with our clients through a comprehensive process of developing their Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery capabilities. The process is focused on the following resources that the business needs to operate continuously at an acceptable level:

People

Information Resources

Facilities and Support Services

Materials, Products, and Customer Service Functions

Intangibles

Success Story

Challenge

A large energy company needed to change the focus of its Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery capabilities from technology to enterprise business processes. The company was comfortable that its data center was safe because they had tested their plans with their disaster recovery service provider. However, the company was uneasy about its ability to operate continuously if something other than the data center was affected by a disaster.

Solution

Working in concert with the client, Optimal Services conducted a thorough review of the company's Organization, Processes, and Tools and identified several critical issues:

No Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery capabilities existed for key business units:

- Mail Processing for sending billing statements and receiving payments

- Customer Service Call Center

- Telemarketing Call Center

Key business functions were not part of the planning process:

- Facilities

- Human Resources

- Legal

The building that housed the data center lacked appropriate physical security controls.

Adjacent power lines were close enough to fall on the building.

There was no post-disaster plan to communicate with non-technical employees.

Optimal Services developed a comprehensive set of recommendations that addressed the critical issues above and created a framework and processes to expand the company's Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery capabilities to meet its requirements for acceptable continuous operations.