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Is Your Business Ready for Catastrophe?

Focusing on just a few key elements of business continuity and disaster planning will go a long way toward mitigating your losses and making sure your business won’t be left in the dark in the event of hurricanes, power outages and other calamities.

By Stewart Deck

June 20, 2007 — CIO — Is your business ready for a visit from Erin, Felix, Jerry or Karen this summer? Those are the names of four of this year’s storms that will be aiming to hit shore this season. The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is predicting three to five major Katrina-sized, Category Three hurricanes, with up to 130-mile-per-hour winds and 12-foot storm surges, in the coming months.

According to market research firm In-Stat, most companies are not prepared for disaster, whether it comes in the form of gale force winds and rain, power outages, a health-care threat or terrorist attack. A December 2006 report from In-Stat reveals that only 28 percent of enterprises had fully implemented disaster recovery applications, and that 20 percent either had no continuity plans at all or were unaware of any plans.

Putting off disaster recovery planning is pound foolish: Businesses that have been through a disaster report having lost between $100,000 and $500,000 a day, according to a survey conducted in 2005 by AT&T and the International Association of Emergency Managers. You don’t need to subject your organization to that risk. Business continuity experts say that focusing on just a few key elements of disaster planning will go a long way toward mitigating your losses and making sure your business won’t be left in the dark in the event of some catastrophe. Here’s what you can do to make sure you’re prepared for and can quickly recover from the worst.

1. Identify vulnerabilities in your business. Imagine what could happen if a disaster shut down your company, and assess where your vulnerable spots are if a hurricane strikes, a pandemic hits or something else shakes your organization’s foundation. To determine how your business might be impacted, gather a group of individuals from the business and IT who intimately understand business and technical operations to do some scenario planning, advises Bill Nagel, an analyst at Forrester Research. He also recommends bringing in an expert in business continuity planning to help identify vulnerabilities you and your team might miss. Scenario planning will help you identify additional infrastructure you may need, such as backup power generators, redundant data circuits, backup applications and remote data storage.

2. Replicate your data and ensure redundant systems. Your continuity planning should include system redundancy to support vital business applications. Sub shop chain Quiznos needs to maintain system uptime and guarantee that little to no data is lost during severe weather, according to Michael Derosier, the Denver-based company’s vice president of IT. Denver is free from hurricanes and earthquakes, but other weather sometimes causes power trouble for Derosier’s group. “We plan for everything from blizzards to pandemics to other major catastrophes,” he says.

 

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