Loading the dice in your favour
Nik Haidar, Product Development Director, Telstra International argues that jail terms for lack of compliance in some sectors, the chaos caused by the Buncefield fire and the broken undersea cable which left parts of the Middle East with snail-pace internet this year, clearly demonstrate the need for strong business continuity planning
On top of controlling costs, organisations face the added pressures of being responsible 'green' corporate citizens and complying with legislation such as Sarbanes Oxley or Basel II. The days of being able to consider business continuity planning as a 'nice to have' are long gone.
However, despite these compelling arguments, 14% of mid-to-large businesses in the UK admit that they don't have complete confidence that their business continuity strategy is robust enough, nor have they carried out the appropriate tests to assess this1. Yet, the legal, financial and PR ramifications of downtime can be crippling if not terminal to the most secure organisation.
First and foremost, businesses must put business continuity at the heart of their security and network planning.
Despite the pressures to plan for every contingency, many companies still see this as a separate planning initiative, rather than an integral part of business and technology strategy. Network structure is a crucial part of business continuity. Housing business critical data and IT infrastructure on-site should be considered very carefully; for many companies the option to outsource these business critical functions is by far the most viable option particularly for those companies who take business continuity and security seriously. Indeed many organisations are now considering more extreme security measures such as multi-national, multi-site hosting and data backup centres.
A delicate balancing act is required when it comes to creating robust business continuity plans. Realistically, organisations must involve partners as the cost and resource required to build your own data centre, for example, could be prohibitive. However, too many companies go to the other extreme, seeking to outsource all responsibility of their risk management strategy to a 3rd party. Neither solution is ideal and while partners certainly have a role to play, business continuity planning should be a joint effort, rather than a project to be managed in its entirety by a supplier.
While no organisation can plan for every contingency, companies can certainly load the dice in their favour by taking a holistic and shared approach to business continuity planning. At a time where budgets are tightening, no company can afford to cut resourcing for this part of business strategy as it may mean the difference between survival and business failure.
