The truth is, you’re never sure you are prepared for the right thing. But if you build in some redundancy or flexibility, it doesn’t matter if it’s a hurricane, an earthquake or a strike. You’ll be ready for anything regardless of the problem.

What’s the one thing that’s keeping CIOs up at night right now?

First of all, we are still in the era of IT viruses, which is an ongoing battle. Aside from that, IT and all the other functions are tied together. If the computers are down, the supply chain won’t move. And if we can’t buy the material [from suppliers], there is nothing to sell. Companies that do risk management well usually do it with cross-functional teams. In many cases the CIO is leading the group because the impact of losing IT infrastructure could be so severe.

But it goes beyond that. I just talked to Procter & Gamble, for example. Their Folgers plant in New Orleans got flooded after the hurricane. But their problem was not the plant—they knew how to get it up and running again. Their problem was they didn’t have electricity, water or workers. So they dug a well to get water to the plant. And, in general, they have expanded the way they do risk profiles to include not only IT systems, which may go down, but also the support system outside of the plant. Companies have to expand the way they look at disaster planning and start looking beyond their own facilities to the greater ecosystem around them.

The truth is, you’re never sure you are prepared for the right thing. But if you build in some redundancy or flexibility, it doesn’t matter if it’s a hurricane, an earthquake or a strike. You’ll be ready for anything regardless of the problem.