Category: Disaster Recovery

Global Enterprise Solutions

If you’ve only held one Business Continuity job, you may not be aware that one size does not fit all.  Things can be accomplished much more quickly in smaller organizations.  The larger the organization, the more complex it, and its BCM needs, are likely to be.  Speed, culture and complexity…

You Need an Automated Notification Tool (You Really Do!)

Before there were automobiles, people traveled only a few miles from their homes – because travel by horse, or on foot, was slow.  For centuries, that limited horizon satisfied most people’s needs.  With the advent of the bicycle, followed by the internal combustion engine, individuals could travel further and faster…

Public Utilities: Managing Business Continuity Beyond BCM Standards

Business Continuity Management professionals in publicly-regulated utilities (electric, oil, gas, water, telecommunications) are different.  Not because of whom they are – but because of what their job requires. They can’t blindly follow industry standards (not that any of us do).  They have an alternate set of rules and responsibilities that…

Should You Care About RPO?

Every Business Continuity Management (BCM) “standard” uses RP0 (Recovery Point Objective) as a key metric, and nearly every BCM program includes that metric – but few understand it, and even fewer know what to do about it.  Should you care? By definition, RPO is the maximum targeted period in which…

Government Agency BCM – Unique Needs Require Unique Solutions

Agencies of the US Federal Government (but Canadian, EU and most other Government agencies as well) have a ‘civic duty’ to provide Continuity of Operations (COOP) to assure the delivery of services to their citizens (as well as other Government operations). In many ways this mandate is no different than…

Dependency Mapping

There are no vacuums in business (unless you’re in janitorial or restoration services). Within every organization, everything is connected – people, processes, technology, facilities, supply chains and more. But some Business Continuity Plans are created as though the underlying function were a soloist – facing a lonely struggle to recover…

5 Business Continuity Myths – Legends, Lies & Anachronisms

For more than two decades, products, services and generally accepted practices have been in a nearly constant state of change.  Gone are telegrams, analog phones, mid-range computers, pagers, secretaries, and standing in line to get a boarding pass.  Yet some still cling to technologies, products and practices long after their…

Asset-Centric BCM – How do You Plan?

The world grows more complex every day.  New technologies, global competition, instant communications; every new opportunity presents new risks.  Yet countless BCM planners follow “Loss of” scenarios for their Plans. I know from experience that many BCM professionals understand those “loss of” planning templates may not be good enough, yet…

The Myth of Outsourcing BCM

Outsourcing (paying another company to do some portion of work your own company doesn’t want to, or can’t do itself) can be a tricky proposition.  It may make sense when another company already has expertise, experience and capacity to perform tasks you need to add or expand.  It may also…

Don’t Test BC Plans – Exercise Them!

For all our supposed ‘maturity’, the Business Continuity industry can’t agree on some of the simplest things – like terminology.  When it comes to proving the worth of BC and ITDR plans, getting the terminology right should be easy.  Do you test – or do you exercise? There’s a simple…