Don’t let the loss of single critical resource cause you to lose money Business Continuity Planning is the process of putting in place the necessary measures and plans to prevent disruptive incidents from damaging your business. One of the measures that needs to be taken is to remove, as far as possible, single points of…
Business Impact Analysis reveals the critical parts of your organisation. Use it to determine what to backup and how frequently. Backing up the data that forms the life blood of your organisation is one of the key Business Continuity Strategies, but actually deciding what to backup, where to store it and how frequently to backup…
Failing to protect the data that runs your business could be very costly, make sure you know how costly and take appropriate measures. Most businesses these days are entirely dependent on computer held data; in fact they are no longer able to operate effectively without access to current digital information. It could be customer orders,…
Knowing how your processes link together is an essential step to improving your Business Continuity The operations of the typical business consist of a number of processes. These may be physical processes, as in a manufacturing plant; or they may be information processes. In both cases, there is a logical sequence of activities that contribute…
Knowing where the controls for your utilities are could save the day, but make sure you can continue without power. We are always told to familiarise ourselves with where the gas and water taps are in our own houses. Do you know where the utility control points are in your building? Could you turn off…
The objective of business continuity planning is to protect the critical activities in your organisation from unnecessary disruption. But what is a critical activity? Criticality, for the purposes of business continuity planning, is determined by the degree to which the organisation would suffer if that activity were to be disrupted. The impact on the organisation…
Investing in IT Service Continuity without first undertaking a Business Impact Analysis risks wasting money I’ve written this post to rebuff the actions of a number of IT product and service companies who promote their wares under the banner “Business Continuity”. To my mind, and that of ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library – a UK…
Base your backup strategy on your Business Continuity needs Many organisations choose their backup strategy based on technical considerations. I would like to argue that the decision should be taken with business continuity in mind. In my discussions, it is common for the person responsible for data protection and backup to be somebody from the…
Follow Kiplings’s mantra to learn about this business critical topic I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew) Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who. Kipling knew a thing or to about how to ask the questions that matter: after all, he was a journalist…
Outsourcing non-core activities as part of your Business Continuity Planning can significantly reduce your operational risks. In his 1989 book ‘The Age of Unreason’; Charles Handy talked about organisational models and described one based on the Shamrock of his native Ireland. The Shamrock Organisation comprises three distinct elements: a core of permanent workers who are…
