Dear

If you are interested in Business Continuity ... then this is going to be one of the most timely messages you'll ever read.

Why?

Over the last two weeks, Sydney has experienced two of the largest power failures in the City's history.  Both were unplanned, involuntary and more chaotic versions of the recent "Earth Hour", forced upon Sydney's CBD and eastern suburbs - blackouts that plunged 70,000 houses and businesses into darkness, closed the Sydney Harbour Tunnel and affected by the failure of more than 100 sets of traffic lights.  NSW Fire Brigade fielded over 40 emergency calls within 15 minutes of the blackout, nearly all for people trapped in office building lifts.

Many organisations invoked their business continuity or IT disaster recovery plans; those without one, were less fortunate.  Unable to account for or communicate with their staff.  No ability to re-assure their customers that the situation was under control.  No 'plan of action'.  What did this cost?  In a 2008 survey, the average revenue per hour for mid-large sized organisations across 21 industries was a staggering $1,010,536. 

Imagine how the organizations that had a plan in place felt, secure in the knowledge that their business would continue, with minimal impacts.  A plan that allows them to sleep easy at night, knowing that they have a series of thoroughly tested steps, using trained staff, who know how to respond to any major business outage - power failures, floods, IT failures, loss of key suppliers, pandemic outbreak, or other such catastrophic events.

Wouldn't it be great to feel in-control, prepared and ready to respond?  Especially in this day of the 'real-time enterprise', with a need for 24x7 continuous availability to business functions, IT application and information.

If developing a plan is something you have been thinking about for ages, take action now, before it's too late.

Where do I start?

If budgets are limited, here are six critical elements to get you started:

• Develop a Crisis communications plan to ensure the safety of employees, critical decision making, and project a view to your customers that the situation is under control.

• Get your critical information off your primary site.  Implement secure disk or tape backups, using a reputable provider to transport and store the media

• Implement countermeasures before the incident to minimise their impact

• Prioritise business recovery activities based on the criticality of business processes - perform a Business Impact Assessment to work out what is most important

• Use internal property assets combined with work from home arrangements for office workspace recovery, rather than using expensive third-party recovery vendors

• Maintain up to date staff and supplier contact information at all times - the ability to communicate effectively in a disaster is critical.

OpsCentre can help you develop a plan, laid out in plain English; logical, easy to read, understand and implement.  We've helped organisations across all industries to put in place plans that actually work.  SME's.  Multinationals. Government departments.  We have solutions to fast-track a business continuity solution across all industries.

We can show you:

• How to fast-track the analysis of business risks and impacts, to protect your most valuable business assets
• 7 cost-effective strategies to mitigate the effect of major incidents on your business
• The 5 best ways to structure your business continuity plan for ease of use and ongoing maintenance
  
• 3 proven steps to implement Crisis and Emergency Management, to safeguard and account for your staff
• The little-known way to embed business continuity plans within your organization with minimal effort and ensure people actually use them

... and if you have a plan that hasn't been updated or tested in the last 3-6 months, industry research shows that you are just as exposed as having no plan at all.

Warm Regards
Rod Crowder
OpsCentre