“Putting your money where your mouth is” is as true of business continuity planning as of anything else. Government agencies often set an example in this respect, making their BC plans readily available and free of charge. That doesn’t mean that there’s no need for constructive criticism. Some of the plans are well thought-out and comprehensive, while others may have “underdeveloped strengths” (meaning apparent weaknesses or omissions). So it’s interesting to see a private-sector company like IT networking vendor Cisco also making information on its BC planning public and the points it emphasises.
Posts Tagged ‘Business Continuity Planning’
When the Private Sector Makes its Business Continuity Planning Public
Sunday, January 29th, 2012Primary Metrics For Disaster Recovery And Business Continuity
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011Metrics are what you use to measure things. It sounds obvious. What’s not so obvious is why figure-driven metrics seem so often to be channelled off towards disaster recovery and IT in particular, whereas other high-level metrics end up with business continuity. Sure, there are the historical IT roots of disaster recovery to be considered compared to those of business continuity, but in theory we’ve evolved since then. Are we face to face with a phenomenon of, well, “metricism” – our term to express unjustified discrimination in the way metrics are used? (more…)
Morphing DR Plans Into BC plans
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011Disaster recovery plans are like car insurance. It’s not because you’ve insured your car that you’re obliged to have an accident; similarly, it’s not because you have a great disaster recovery plan, that you’re obliged to have a disaster. Although reactive disaster recovery will always be a counterpart to proactive business continuity, better driving will also mean fewer accidents, so to speak. The more you can do in business continuity and the less you have to do in disaster recovery, the better.
Moving towards a business case for business continuity
Tuesday, October 25th, 2011Making the business case for business continuity is an area that companies struggle with. Whereas fires and explosions can have people’s imaginations working feverishly, when a little time goes by and they don’t happen, they get relegated to a “to do” list that might get done by the IT department, but not by others. (more…)
Business continuity test scenarios – do you have to “pull the plug”?
Saturday, October 8th, 2011Business continuity test scenarios are an integral part of good Business Continuity planning, on two conditions: they test for the right things; and that they are realistic in how they test. It’s important to keep the end goal in mind. A simple definition of business continuity can be helpful here, such as the one from the US Department of Homeland Security – “the ability of an organisation to take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’”. A good test scenario therefore has to mirror a situation where an organisation is under real pressure or in a real crisis, rather than just running your finger down a checklist of “if this, then that” line items. (more…)
Employee and Personal Impacts of a Disaster
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011Although recovering servers and IT applications is an important part of disaster recovery and business continuity planning, it’s also important to take into account the impact on employees of a disaster. A company’s systems may be vital if employees are to be able to work, but employees are also how a company communicates and continues to do business with its customers and suppliers.
Canberra Business Continuity Certification – Bringing Public and Private Sectors Together
Friday, September 9th, 2011Attaining the prestige of business continuity certification in Australia is one good reason for attending a course. For many professionals, there’s also another one – mixing with BCP peers and exchanging points of view. The give and take between private and public sectors is a good example. Private industry and service sectors often take their lead from the public sector in terms of which policies and strategies to implement. After all, successfully running a 1.7 trillion dollar economy means due care and planning, especially in terms of business continuity. Likewise, Government gets some of its best ideas from hearing about solutions and best practices from independent enterprises.
The Canberra venue for the BCLE-2000 Business Continuity Planning course reflects this. OpsCentre is running this DRII course in response to the drive for business continuity certification in Australia. The course will be held in Canberra from Monday November 28th to Friday December 2nd. The course runs for 4.5 days and covers the 10 professional practices for BCP professionals and the qualifying exam for CBCP (Certified Business Continuity Professional) qualification. In keeping with the CBCP program, the course is for professionals with a minimum of two years of business continuity experience.
Canberra with its concentration of Federal Government departments is therefore a location with particular potential for exchanges between professionals seeking business continuity certification in Australia. The principles of BCP remain the same in any industry, including risk evaluation, business impact analysis and BC strategy development and planning. Instructors make use of case study material and other selected exercises that will bring out the best of the mix of experience among the course attendees, ensuring the BC planning expertise that is taught and put into practice is balanced and relevant for all.
Full course outline and registration form are available on our DRI Australia Website.
Upcoming DRII Business Continuity Planning Courses
Friday, August 5th, 2011We are pleased to announce dates for two upcoming DRII courses which OpsCentre is delivering as the Australian affiliate of DRI International.
BCLE-2000 Business Continuity Planning
This 4.5 day course covers the 10 professional practices for Business Continuity Planning professionals and also the qualifying exam for the CBCP Certified Business Continuity Professional qualification.
SYDNEY
Monday September 12th to Friday 16th September
CANBERRA
Monday November 28th to Friday 2nd December
Full course outline and registration form are available on our DRI Australia Website at www.dri-anz.org
DRII Training Courses Available – CBCP
Thursday, June 30th, 2011OpsCentre is the Australian representative of Disaster Recovery Institute International (DRII) and we are pleased to offer the BCLE-2000 Business Continuity Planning course. This 4.5 day course covers the professional practices required by a business continuity professional and also includes the CBCP – Certified Business Continuity Professional exam.
Become a CBCP, contact OpsCentre to obtain more information about our training courses.
Don’t have time for Business Continuity Management? Then why not outsource it!
Wednesday, October 13th, 2010Ensuring continuity of your business functions, processes and critical IT systems and applications, along with the decision making in a time of crisis cannot be completely outsourced; there will always be responsibilities owned by the board, executive team and operational staff members. However, a great deal of the co-ordination and maintenance can be outsourced for considerably less cost than hiring a full-time Business Continuity Manager. A commitment to ongoing maintenance of your business continuity plan not only ensures that it is current and usable, but also assists with meeting regulatory and audit obligations.
OpsCentre tailors a Business Continuity Managed Service to meet suit any level of requirements and budget and can include activities such as:
1. Conducting regular reviews and updates of all business continuity and IT disaster recovery documentation to ensure it is current
2. Ensuring ongoing IT and business change management and project implementations consider Business Continuity implications and that the plans and strategy are kept in alignment with an evolving organisation.
3. Co-ordinating periodic refreshes of the business impact analysis and risk assessments
4. Scheduling regular desktop exercises and live tests of the business continuity plan
5. Providing induction training for new staff, maintaining training materials and training your trainers
6. Providing ongoing mentoring and training for key staff in their business continuity roles
7. Chairing a periodic Business Continuity Steering Committee and tracking progress of resulting action items.
8. Crisis support in the case of a business interruption incident
9. Providing co-ordination and facilitation assistance during actual disaster events or major incidents.
We cater to all levels of client needs: from basic quarterly maintenance tasks to 24×7 standby support; helping co-ordinate an incident response whenever it may happen day or night. Using our skilled and experienced team means you also gain access to the latest methodologies, industry research and continuity planning standards that we continually work with.
Talk with OpsCentre’s Director, Rod Crowder today to discuss your needs and we can build a business case to show how you can achieve more and save money compared to hiring an in-house resource.
Business Continuity Best Practice Strategies – YouTube Video
Saturday, May 15th, 2010OpsCentre’s YouTube channel features Rod Crowder, Managing Director, discussing key Business Continuity Planning issues and best practice strategies.
Key Supplier Resilience as part of Business Continuity Management
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010It is not enough just to look at the resilience strategies for within your organization, the entire supply chain needs to be considered for your critical business functions.
Are you reliant on a single supplier for any key products or services?
If you have alternate suppliers, are they geographically separate or in other ways diverse from your primary supplier? If your primary supplier was affected by a problem, how likely is it this backup supplier would be too?
Can you build the requirement for these suppliers to have robust and verified business continuity in place for themselves into your supply agreements?
What are your workarounds and strategies if supply of these products or services were cut-off?
All of these questions should be examined as part of a robust business impact analysis of your critical business functions. Having a BCP is more than just a tick in the box for your audit report. It is about having confidence in your organization’s resilience. What a great selling feature for your clients, if you can confidently state you’ve got a mature and resilient organization that will stay in operation when others may fail!
Business Continuity Planning for Small to Medium Enterprise
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010Consider the scenario of losing your primary premises due to fire. Can you answer these questions?
- How much revenue would you lose being out of action for a day, a week or a month?
- Have you got an alternate location to operate your business from?
- Is your data regularly sent off site and ready to be restored into backup systems?
- What are your critical paper records and how do you continue to operate if they were destroyed?
Every business, regardless of its size, should be confident in the answers to these questions and should be making an informed choice about the cost of implementing business continuity strategies and IT disaster recovery solutions versus the risk\cost of not doing anything.
Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) often don’t have the budget or resources to spend months implementing a business continuity project. But SME’s still have a need for BCP, just as much as bigger organisations. Quite often all of the physical resources, especially IT equipment are concentrated in the one location which can increase the risk. Sometimes without dedicated IT staff, the backup and restoration practices may not be sufficient to help them recover from a loss of premises type incident.
At OpsCentre we’ve refined the art of the ‘Quick Start’ BCP and can deliver a business continuity plan for suitable small to medium enterprises within 1-2 weeks. If your organization needs assistance with getting a business continuity plan in place we can help. Contact us and let us know what you need.
OpsCentre offers complimentary Business Continuity Consultation
Monday, February 8th, 2010OpsCentre is pleased to announce the launch of our COMPLIMENTARY Business Continuity Consultation offer. For a limited time we are providing a complimentary consultation, to Australian Businesses valued at $495.
The Business Continuity Consultation assesses the effectiveness of your organisation’s Business Continuity Program. If you don’t have one in place, the assessment will identify the level of exposure and the critical elements required to ensure your organisation can recover effectively from a major incident.
For more information click on this link… Business Continuity Consultation
Or contact us now on 1300-bc-plan to book in your complimentary consultation.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Events Calendar
Monday, January 25th, 2010OpsCentre have compiled the following list of Au/NZ Business Continuity and IT Disaster Recovery related exhibitions, expos, conferences and other events.
Hope to see you there at one or more of the events.
| Feb | 23/02/2010 | Sydney | Continuity Forum | CF Experienced User Special Interest Group |
| Feb | 24/02/2010 | Wellington | Conferenz | 5th Annual Business Continuity Conference |
| March | 22/03/10 & 23/03/10 | Sydney | CEBIT | CEBIT – Future Proofing your data centre conference |
| March | 23/03/2010 | Sydney | Continuity Forum | Business Continuity Awareness Week Kick-off event |
| March | 24/03/10 & 25/03/10 | Sydney | BCI | Australasian Business Continuity Summit 2010 |
| March | 24-25 March 2010 | Sydney | Gartner | Gartner Infrastructure, Operation and Data Centre Summit |
| May | 5/05/2010 | NZ | Continuity Forum | New Zealand Conference |
| May | 19/05/10 -20/05/10 | Canberra | IQPC | Enterprise Risk Management for Government 2010 |
| May | 24 – 26 May 2010 | Sydney | CEBIT | CEBIT 2010 |
| Sep | 8/09/2010 | Sydney | Continuity Forum | Continuity Forum Conference and Expo |
| Nov | 10/11/2010 | Sydney | Continuity Forum | BC in Government Conference |
Further details canbe found on the websites of the respective companies organizing the events.