Another Practice Round! Another Near Miss in California – So What Are you Thinking?

If you’ve read the newspaper or listened to the news, the reports from the recent California earthquake indicate little or no damage or disruption of life in general. As a contingency planner I know what I’m thinking – complacency is still alive and well. What are you thinking?

Most of my clients and prospects live in earthquake zones. I have discussed the California event with a few and there is some concern, but not as much as someone in my profession would hope – and NO I’m not looking at this from revenue stream perspective. The thought process is amazing when you consider the likelihood of the “big” one or even a “bigger” one and the damage and disruption that would occur. For those of you NOT in an earthquake zone, what other hazards are you faced with that could cause a major disruption to your business activities? Have you taken a look at the Hazards List published by your local department of emergency management? Here is an example of my local Hazard List in Spokane County. Maybe nothing has happened so far, but everyone should have a plan to stay in business – regardless of what your business is!

I would encourage all of you to heighten your awareness of your local hazards – natural, technological and human-caused. Take the time to conduct a Risk Analysis! It will be well worth it if you carry it forward and create a Business Continuity Plan and put the “appropriate” measures in place to respond to an event (regardless of what it is), resume your critical business functions, and recover your business over time.

If you have a plan you should take this opportunity to revisit your plan from a risk perspective – all risks! Make sure you have the resources you would need at-time-of-event set aside to accomplish the above. If not, it’s time to start thinking about Crisis Management, Business Continuity, and Disaster Recovery. How will you deal with the event? What business functions really need to come back on line? What resources would you need to set aside – technological and work area related?

Oh yeah, one last tidbit! Make sure whatever you do from a physical resource allocation perspective – that the solution you develop for data backup, the location of critical IT infrastructure, and the alternate workspace for your employees involved in the resumption of your critical business functions would not be impacted by the same event – i.e. an earthquake. Take a look at this blog post “Where NOT to keep your severs according to Mother Nature.”

No Business Continuity Plan? What’s Your Exposure to Lost Revenue?

I wrote my first article about liability and contingency planning in 2003. We are not talking about liability as it relates to a businesses’ inability to supply products and services to their customers. We are talking about liability as it relates to lost revenue as the result of not developing a business continuity plan. This could be a dilemma for a lot of businesses large and small. When you consider the number of businesses that do not have a plan in place to deal with a major business disruption – it’s a big deal or should I say a potential deal buster. This issue isn’t going away!

I just returned from yet another prospect whose driver for dealing with the issues of business continuity planning is NOW driven by a long time customers request to see the prospects business continuity plan. One problem – they don’t have one. They are not a large organization by any means. The revenue stream from the customer requesting to see the plan is ONLY $25,000 a year but it pays the bills! In another case a prospect was facing the possibility of losing out on a large multi-million dollar deal because of the absence of a business continuity plan – we built the plan, they secured the business.

Have you been asked by a key customer or prospect if you have a business continuity plan? Some of my customers and prospects have had to address this issue in order to keep their revenue stream intact. If you deal with banks and credit unions you find yourself being asked questions like – Do you have a plan? Is it based on your knowledge of local risk? Is it based on a formal business impact analysis? Do you have a solution in place to deal with a major business disruption? Is it based on the output from your business impact analysis? Is the plan documented and exercised on a regular basis? If you have a plan – show me! Where do you stand? Unless you are prepared to lose revenue from that valued customer or that anticipated piece of new business, you’d better get on with it – time to develop that business continuity management plan.

My Part in the Emergency Operations Center – Valley View Wildfire

The Real Thing – This is Why We Practice!

Last Thursday, July 10th, I had the opportunity to sit in the Spokane City/County Emergency Operations Center and observe the professionals working the Valley View Wildfire (link to video footage). There were a lot of positives that came together during the event but some lessons learned as well. When you consider that most of those folks deal with emergency responses for a living, you would think that most of the issues that surfaced should have been addressed in the past, either as the result of past emergencies or through the regular training exercises these folks conduct. From my observation, though, what it came down to was the proverbial left and right hand not knowing what the other hand was doing – not a lot of it mind you, but enough to raise one’s eyebrows.

The big question for me as I look to the private sector is, if the real professionals have challenges during an emergency, what would it look like from an individual’s company’s perspective following a major business disruption? Are you prepared? Would communications flow freely? Could you respond to a business disruption? Could you resume your business? Recover your business over time? Unless you test your plan (assuming that you have one), you will never know! My theory is, better to find out during an exercise vs. during an emergency. If you are not going to make the effort to exercise your plan – good luck following the disruption we all hope never occurs.