By a quirk of language, the term “threat landscape” is currently used to refer specifically to cyber-threats. These threats alone already keep business continuity professionals on their toes, even if the nitty-gritty of protecting a company in this area is often the direct responsibility of the IT department. However, considering that threats were confined to the web would be short-sighted to say the least. BC practitioners may find themselves having to do educate their colleagues if they want their organisation to think beyond worms and viruses. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘Business Continuity’
Isn’t a Threat Landscape More than just Worms and Viruses?
Wednesday, May 8th, 2013ASIC BC Guidance as an Alternative to Putting Your Money under the Mattress
Wednesday, May 1st, 2013There was a time when the safest place for your money was reckoned to be under your mattress. Paper money didn’t exist. The gold and silver coins in use were resistant against flood and a certain degree of fire, as well as theft if you were lying on the mattress at the time: in other words, there was a certain degree of business continuity built in. Nowadays, things are rather different. The gold standard is no more. Many people’s or businesses’ wealth is locked up in digital investments, regulated by organisations like ASIC, the Australian Securities & Investments Commission. So what about business continuity now? (more…)
To Share or Not to Share Business Continuity in a Shared Supply Chain
Monday, April 29th, 2013One of the challenges to business continuity planning in 2013 will be the trend to share supply chain facilities between two or more companies. The logic is that to keep logistics and distribution running smoothly but at acceptable cost, the overhead of facilities such as distribution centres or delivery can be shared. It is even possible for two companies sharing part of the same supply chain to be competitors with each other. However, although this may work for supply chain operations, what about business continuity? Can it be shared or must business continuity be an individual activity for each company concerned? (more…)
NFPA1500 or how the Fire Department Does Business Continuity
Wednesday, April 24th, 2013With emergencies as the very basis of its existence, a fire department still needs to think out its own business continuity. The NFPA (National Fire Protection Association in the United States) 1500 standard details the procedures that a fire department should or must follow in order to continually remain operational. Instructions in NFPA 1500 start off with the Fire Department Organizational Statement, before moving to the Risk Management Plan: both documents are mandatory. In that case, is there anything in the standard that is optional or are all the instructions compulsory? (more…)
Never a Dull Day with Business Continuity
Monday, April 22nd, 2013Business continuity principles may span industries and continents, but their application can turn out to be very different. Organisations in different professional sectors have varying methods and priorities in organising their daily activities. What may be sufficient as business continuity planning in one enterprise may be inadequate for another. Try this as a thought experiment – which has the more extensive needs for business continuity, a bank or a manufacturing company? (more…)
What the SS540 Business Continuity Standard is Designed to Do
Friday, April 19th, 2013Is a population of around five million people enough to justify bringing out a separate business continuity standard for that country? After all, with other internationally applied standards already available, such as BS 25999 and now ISO 22301, making your own version might be described as reinventing the wheel. However, when that country is Singapore with one of the five busiest ports in the world and the only Asian country to be rated “AAA” by the world’s three top credit rating agencies, then Singapore’s own standard for business continuity practices, SS540, takes on a new light. (more…)
Keep CALM and Share My Business Continuity With Me
Friday, April 5th, 2013As supply chains increasingly integrate suppliers, it’s time to extend business continuity in the same way. In simple situations involving individual consumers and providers, this is already happening. Customers who buy new cars today often rely on the dealer to also provide their “car continuity” because the systems in the car require specialist equipment for maintenance. Intelligence embedded in systems is also driving the move towards “Collaborative Asset Lifecycle Management” (CALM) for enterprises and their suppliers. There’s often a difference in attitude however between individuals and enterprises. (more…)
Reality Bites – Business Continuity Incident Examples and Statistics
Friday, March 29th, 2013As business continuity covers all parts of an organization, there is a tendency sometimes to describe it in correspondingly general terms. Compared to all the theoretical possibilities of how BC issues can affect businesses, real-life examples are often in shorter supply. On the other hand, statistics about the number of businesses that go bust after a BC incident are systematically quoted. There’s no reason to be miserly about documented incidents as a report on BC management from ANAO (Australian National Audit Office) shows. The statistics however are another matter. (more…)
Customers Who Make the Laws for Business Continuity in Manufacturing
Wednesday, March 20th, 2013In finance and healthcare, they have laws for business continuity. In manufacturing, they have OEM customers and it’s a moot point as to which, laws or customers, have the stronger influence. True, governments and standards bodies encourage companies in general to implement business continuity management and planning. There are standards and templates to help enterprises put BC in place, and promises of benefits if they do, or warnings of consequences if they don’t. But the manufacturing sector distinguishes itself in terms of “alternative” pressure to do it and do it right. (more…)
WorkCover Sticks and Business Continuity Carrots
Friday, March 8th, 2013One of the consequences of aiming for business continuity is the need to fit in with other programs and imperatives in an enterprise. In particular, employee safety is a requirement that must be met, although it opens the door simultaneously to opportunities for BC planning. Australian states such as New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland have “WorkCover” organisations or similar. These controlling bodies have a number of aims: ensuring that occupational health and safety legislation is observed; providing worker compensation; and providing rehabilitation to workers who need it. So how does this fit in with continuity in business? (more…)
The Real Business Continuity Lesson to be Learned from Hurricane Sandy
Monday, February 25th, 2013In terms of natural disasters for 2012, the “big one” for many people was Hurricane Sandy. The storm affected individuals and enterprises as it knocked out power lines and punished buildings, roads and infrastructure on the US East Coast. After the fact analyses of the hurricane took different standpoints. Some praised the decisions taken by those in charge, while others criticised. However, one point seemed to be made more frequently than others: the availability of information prior to the event. The real business continuity lesson may be in how that information was communicated and interpreted. (more…)
Bush Fires and Business Continuity – Has Anything Really Changed?
Sunday, February 17th, 2013Should you stay or should you go? That’s the big question in thinking out preparedness and plans for disaster recovery and business continuity in the event of a bush fire. In Australia, the damage done in 2009 in Victoria sparked off new debates about the right choice between staying to defend property against bush fires, or evacuating to a safer place. Key figures including fire chiefs, politicians and subject matter experts had differing points of view – but is it truer to say that whatever the choice, it still comes down to a couple of fundamental points? (more…)
What does AS/NZS5050 have to Do with Black Swans and Defining Your Destiny?
Wednesday, February 6th, 2013AS/NZS5050, with its title of “Business continuity – Managing disruption-related risk”, caused a few ripples when it was published in 2010. With its focus on risk management, it recommends that disruption should be stabilised as soon as possible, with resumption of mission-critical operations and a speedy return to normal functioning. It also recommends that a standard part of an organisation’s risk management plan should be to reduce the size and the occurrence of risks with the potential to cause disruption. So far so good, but what about unidentifiable risk? (more…)
What HICS does to Help Hospitals Cope with Disasters and More
Friday, February 1st, 2013HICS – Hospital Incident Command System, or Control System for some – contains guidelines specific to hospital organisations with respect to business continuity requirements. While most people would readily appreciate the life or death nature, literally, of certain activities within a hospital, business continuity and disaster recovery stretch can have a very broad remit. Fires and earthquakes, terrorist attacks, epidemics, child abduction and internal utility failure are all events that hospitals may have to deal with, both for their own staff and for the public at large. (more…)
Too Much “Business as Usual” can be Bad for Your Health
Monday, January 28th, 2013It’s something of a paradox. On the one hand, maintaining business as usual (BAU) could be considered a key goal of business continuity, especially if “business as usual” means high productivity and efficiency. Yet as a research paper presented by Dr. Robert Kay at the DEP* Expo 2012 points out, a focus on BAU that is excessive can end up weakening the very organisation that it is supposed to be supporting. The determining factor is the attitude in the organisation to the short term and the longer term. (more…)