Continuity Planning Overview, Research Paper Example

When an unexpected disaster hits a company, a well-executed continuity plan and disaster recovery plan are essential in helping the company mitigate through the problem of data storage, hardware storage, and other essential factors that help protect the company’s assets. Being the management position, requires a fundamental understanding of planning and control that helps to ensure the necessary resources are used to their fullest capacity. Disasters of any kind are highly unpredictable, but while people cannot prepare for every disaster, there are ways to ensure that the organization can at least be prepared. The continuity plan is the one of the most essential functions of an organization. As the newly hired business continuity lead, it is the primary duties and responsibilities have overall experiences working technology assets and business system planning. More importantly the job will requiring the development of the business continuity and disaster recovery plans that oversee the plan execution, and testing, emergency response and recovery tasks.

In an organization, being a part of the business continuity planning focuses on preparing organizations that will ensure that the organization is able to survive in the case of an emergency or disaster. As the Business Continuity lead, there are several responsibilities that are pertinent in the organization. According to Salary.com, some of the responsibilities includes, “Leads business recovery, crisis management, emergency management, contingency planning and disaster-preparedness planning. Provides support and expertise during live events.” (Salary, n.d) This is in regard to the constant communication between the organization and the members in each to the department in order to help maintain and control the compliance with business continuity processes, readiness, and exercises. As the lead, the duties are focused on maintaining a business continuity lifecycle of planning and business analysis. It is the primary job to identify and assess the potential impact that various disaster and crisis scenarios could have on the organization’s business process. One of the first policies that the job would require is to assess the most essential function of the organization. According to Tech Target, “Once the crucial components are identified, failover mechanisms can be put in place. New technologies, such as disk mirroring over the Internet, make it feasible for an organization to maintain up-to-date copies of data in geographically dispersed locations, so that data access can continue uninterrupted if one location is disabled.” (Tech Target, 2014) The policies that will be implemented includes change control policies that include monitoring any changes to the formal process that of quality management and information technology systems. The second policy will be in congruence with the continuity plan which calls for compliance, leadership, and support compliance. Procedurally, the departments would report to me in order to inform of any system changes, and verification that they are following the policies about technology and hardware safety.

One of the key ways in which to present the following presentation to the board, is to initiate a scenario that is computer generated, in order to show the effects and the impact on the company, if they organization does not comply with the necessary changes. The scenario would depict crises such as a natural disaster, data leaking or hacking. The affects can spread to the operational processes, endanger the lives of employees, and ultimately risk the reputation and the profits of the company. This scenario will be presented in a way that hits the board of directors in their pockets, to outline how serious it could be to the entire organization. According to Computer World, “Disasters can result in large monetary losses, legal ramifications, loss of customer confidence and, in some extreme cases, the company’s existence.” (Mangal, 2004) For those that are still skeptical drawn up financial documents will be presented to show the seriousness of loss of profits, from the company being inactive for a few hours, to a day, and longer. The potential disaster could also impact the liability of the employees, so also potential lawsuits, and criminal investigations can be a serious issue for the company. By showing the board of directors this information, they will have physical evidence of how crucial a business continuity plan is to the organization.

In starting this initiative in the right direction, as provided, I would first have to assess the entire organization’s operations, by doing so will conduct a risk analysis that will identify the critical aspects of the organization’s functions. The next step would be presenting the findings to the upper management, and gather support for the implementation of the plan. When support is received, the next step would be to create a business impact analysis (BIA), which would be used in identifying the potential impact it would have on the identified business functions. Once this is given to the board of directors for approval, then support and communication about the plan will be given to the departments. Of course for each step towards implementing the plan, there are several setbacks that include, non-compliance from department leaders, not enough support from the board of directors or management, and also the risks of not identifying all the risks that could be detrimental to the company. When beginning the initiative to institute a business continuity plan in the organization, there are several challenges that will occur that include overall convincing others of the effectiveness. The cost of the implementation is always an issue because the continuity plan mostly applies to larger companies, where testing, configuration, and other steps that are costly, but necessary, pose much hesitance. In order to convince the company that the benefits of the plan far outweighs the risks, more importantly asking the board how much risk can the organization tolerate and willing to spend on managing risks? When the numbers and all the factors are made clear, then they should be ready to implement a continuity plan for the organization.

References

Business Continuance (Business Continuity). (2014). Tech Target. Retrieved from http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/business-continuance

Business Continuity Specialist Skills & Competencies. (n.d). Salary.Com. Retrieved from http://skills.salary.com/Job/Business-Continuity-Specialist

Mangal, Vandana. (2004). Business Continuity Planning Is a Challenge for CIOs. Computer World. Retrieved from http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/91998/Business_Continuity_Planning_Is_a_Challenge_for_CIOs