What if the Deer Park fire happened near your place of business?
The Deer Park fire underscores the fact that the majority of companies today are simply not equipped to continue operations in the event that access to their primary work environments is interrupted.
Oh sure, they may have some form of "Disaster Recovery" (DR) in place to be able to restore or access data elsewhere. But DR is not the same as having a robust, tested, and current "Business Continuity" plan.
Business Continuity is the "Ability of the key operations of a firm to continue without stoppage, irrespective of the adverse circumstances or events." It goes far beyond just survivability of data.
"Business Continuity" is the Ability of the key operations of a firm to continue without stoppage, irrespective of the adverse circumstances or events.
Think about the following real-life scenarios that could result in one of your locations suddenly becoming inaccessible for an extended time, or even permanently. These occurrences are not rare. Think about how many times you have heard about the following situations. What if they happened near your business? How much would it cost you?
- Fire or flood that destroys or severely damages your facility.
- Toxic chemical exposure from a nearby fire. This is happening currently in the Deer Park suburb of Houston, and impacted one of my clients!
- Railroad derailment that results in a toxic chemical spill.
- Mass shooting that turns the area into a crime scene for multiple days, and/or leaves employees uncomfortable returning to the workplace.
- Terrorist attack (Minor or major).
- Long term power failures due to a storms or failure of the electrical grid.
- The death or incapacitation of one or more critical employees due to any of the above.
- The list is endless ...
Now if any of the above happened, how would your business continue? How long would it take to get back up and running? How much does business downtime cost you? Where can employees work from? Can you quickly assemble a tactical team to make business and technical decisions very quickly? How do you communicate with TAC team members and other employees? Where are those communication lists stored? How would you communicate with customers? How can you access your financial data, bank accounts, system passwords, etc. Where is your account information stored, and is it secure? What about your supply chain? Where are your materials going to be delivered and stored? How do customers call you? If the site that is unavailable is a hub site for data communications, how do your other sites exchange data? These are just for starters!
If you cannot answer the above… Then you must ask “How long can I stay in business if critical components of my business are unable to function?”
The time for planning and testing is BEFORE you have to do it for real. You owe it to your employees, customers, suppliers, and yourself to plan for the worst. Most organizations need outside help to do this effectively. Now that you have read this, rank your business from one (totally unprepared) to ten (business can continue without missing a beat) on how you stand.
What was your answer?
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TED MILLER is a Senior Consultant in Synoptek's Business Infrastructure Consulting practice. He is a lead systems engineer, technology architect, and thought leader, and works with teams from across the United States, Canada, and India. Ted has 25 years of experience in a diverse group of industries ranging from small businesses to multi-national Fortune 1000 corporations, including manufacturing, education, healthcare, legal, insurance, high-tech, non-profits, defense, and more. Ted's "big-picture" vision is derived from extensive experience working for managed IT services firms & corporate IT departments, and allows him to excel at architecting and delivering the complex solutions demanded by today’s rapidly changing and competitive business and technology landscape.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the those of his employer.