Business Continuity Overcome the Challenges

Transcription

1 Business Continuity Overcome the Challenges A briefing paper by Phoenix IT Infrastructure Support Services Inspiring Partnership

2 Contents Introduction 3 The Business Case 4 Cost Effective Solutions 7 Selling Business Continuity 10 Summary 11 2

3 Maintaining & winning business through finacial instability becomes a challenge Introduction When organisations change their main focus to streamlining and cost saving, as in the case of the recent financial instability, services that are not delivering immediate tangible benefits come under the scope for reduction and change. Quite often organisations will look to pare down their processes, resources and systems in order to ensure survival through any rough periods. Visualising the benefit of Business Continuity for organisations who have rarely, if ever, needed to use the service can be difficult and because of this Business Continuity may well become a causality of these times in order to deliver a quick cost saving. Finding new business is even more of a challenge than retaining an existing contract due to budget restraints, cost cutting and the general downsizing of organisations. A resilient and sustainable solution requires consultation and investment to meet the demands of the organisation, its stakeholders and government legislation. Existing customers will be reluctant to lose this investment but may struggle to see an alternative and new organisations need to understand how return on investment could be made. The features and facilities between Business Continuity providers differ immensely many of these may not be transparent to the user until invocation takes place by which time it could be too late. Organisations need to understand that there is no one size fits all package for a Business Continuity Solution. This guide aims to identify the features that help to add value to a Business Continuity Solution to deliver the most cost effective service for the end user and how this can help you differentiate from other suppliers. 3

4 Increasing numbers of organisations are required to demonstrate a comprehensive business continuity plan The Business Case How do you demonstrate to an organisation the importance of Business Continuity? Statistics Key statistics show that :- 80% of organisations with a tried and tested business continuity plan are likely to survive a major business discontinuity; only 20% of those without a business continuity plan are likely to survive. Over 90% of organisations that suffer a significant data loss are not in business two years later. Compliance An increasing amount of organisations are required by their insurance companies to prove their capability to continue to function should a disaster occur. Some may also be able to secure a reduction on their premiums if they can demonstrate that a comprehensive Business Continuity Plan is in place. Business Impact Analysis The Business Impact Analysis is the starting point for the Business Continuity Plan it is used to asses the risks and vulnerabilities of an organisation. The information gained from this analysis can be further used to help stream line processes and activities outside of the Business Continuity project. Legislation Some organisations may be forced to consider Business Continuity options due to government legislation such as the civil contingencies act which requires that local authorities, government agencies, emergency services and NHS bodies all develop business continuity plans. 4

5 A re-active approach to a disaster is costly & less effective Stakeholders All stakeholders have an interest in what will happen in the event of a disaster. If no facilities are in place to enable the organisation to continue operating customers may become disillusioned with the brand, take their business elsewhere and generally cause a loss in revenue. This obviously affects everyone employees, directors, suppliers and customers alike. Differentiate Business Continuity is a strong differentiator between competing organisations. The reported number of organisations without a business continuity plan differs widely depending on the selection categories. The Charted Management Institute business continuity survey of 2009 stated that only 52 percent of organisations within the UK have a business continuity plan. Proactive not re-active The budget, effort and resource required to restore an organisation without a business continuity plan could match or outweigh the cost of implementing a solution previous to the event. A tested Business Continuity solution provides an organisation with immediate recovery, a re-active solution will require a slow ramp up of service or product delivery. Minor disaster Major disasters are quite often the primary concern and the one which the solution is built around. Organisations who factor in any event that could prevent access to business information or systems such as local power outage, water damage, averse weather conditions can benefit from a more cost effective solution. Major Disasters Floods, Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Terrorist Attacks Localised Disaster Fire, Power Outage, Water Damage, Snow, Air Conditioning Failure Resource Issues Theft, Virus, Sabotage, IT Failure 5

6 A succesfully handled disaster can improve the perception of an organisation Protect Revenues Maintaining productivity to protect revenues is always a main concern of any organisation coping with a disaster. A by product of the effective handling of an incident is the increase in customer confidence and trust. The handling of the incident will be judged against that of the organisations competitor companies and where handled well will positively increase customer perception. Supply Chain An incident or disaster, that affects a supplier regardless of their location, could affect an organisation as badly as being directly involved. Organisations are increasingly insisting that suppliers must be protected, in order to do this the organisation itself must have a working solution in place. Demonstrating this supply chain and how it can affect the customer through a disaster or incident many miles or many thousand of miles away can deliver a strong image that is difficult to ignore. All of these factors help to build a Business Case for the procurement or maintenance of a Business Continuity Solution. This next section discusses the elements that can be used to create a service with additional value. 6

7 Not all business continuity solutions are alike Cost Effective Solutions What is a Dedicated Seat? Dedicated seats are configured and built to an individual client specification and are available at all times in a set location. A high cost, high availability solution, typically a dedicated seats cost times more than a syndicated one. What is a Syndicated Seat? Syndicated seats have a generic configuration and build with the ability to switch to a customers profile on invocation. A lower cost solution, with risk of lower availability. There are a number of features and benefits of both solutions which can provide additional value add to your customers over that of your competitors. Equitable Seats Equitable syndicated seats are shared between everyone who invokes at a similar time. Therefore if your customer invokes 100 seats and another company invokes 100 the seats are shared, 50 each. If multiple invocations take place the number of seats allocated to your customer will continue to decrease. First Come First Served The first organisation to invoke receives its full compliment of seats for the duration of the invocation subsequent invocations will continue until all the seats are full. Any remaining invocations will then be offered alternative work space at the next nearest centre. Everyone receives their contracted number of seats. 7

8 Some solutions may deliver more risk than recovery Syndication Transparency Organisations have to sell a syndicated seat more times in order to fulfil their costs and provide a similar revenue to the dedicated seating. However the customer also needs to be confident in the knowledge that his seat is not sold so many times that it could become impossible to run a business effectively from the recovery position. Many Business Continuity suppliers are not open and may not even know the number of people who you share seats with. The maximum ratio number should not be higher than 25:1 and the organisation should be transparent about this number. Risk Declaration The Tripartite Authorities, comprising of the Treasury, Financial Services Authority, and the Bank of England, are responsible for the financial regulatory system in the UK. They are tasked with the continual need to asses and improve the ability of the UK s financials sector to deal with major operational disruption. How does this affect Business Continuity? The Tripartite Authorities conduct regular exercises which highlight, amongst other things, the compulsory needs and required features of business continuity. Although focussed on the financial industry, most of the findings translate to other organisations regardless of industry sector. The Tripartite Authorities have been integral in the development of an open and transparent declaration of risk undertaken by an organisation in the selection of a particular Business Continuity Supplier. The declaration known as the Voluntary Supplier Risk Declaration (VSRD) is a process that provides written documentation on anything that could pose a risk to the organisation buying the service. 8

9 All organisations should insist on a VSRD Why is the VSRD important? Many organisations with Business Continuity are not made aware by their suppliers of the associated risks such as those detailed below. A VSRD is essential and organisations should demand this as a pre-requisite in order to identify the risks associated with choosing a specific supplier. A VSRD clearly states:- Number of times a Syndicated seat will be sold At what geographical point does the supplier stop selling seats, known as the exclusion Zone. If a local incident occurs how many people are likely to invoke and are any competitors included in that Zone. For a customer to fully understand the impact of the Exclusion Zone they must be provided with contention details. This will highlight the availability of syndicated seats if all organisations within the exclusion zone invoke at the same time. Number of Recovery Suites Available. The lower the number of suites the less flexibility around shared workspace areas. Dedicated Seating Availability For some organisations dedicated business continuity is critical to their operations. In such cases the organisation should look for a provider who encourages full time consistent use of the dedicated seating. It should be possible to work at this location in the same way as working in the organisations own offices. By doing this the organisation can benefit from additional office space and has the confidence that if they need to invoke everything is in place and tested. 9

10 An experienced partner can mean the difference between a workable and non workable solution Selling Business Continuity Business Continuity is a specialised sell. Unlike other infrastructure service sales the buying organisation may not know what features, facilities or resource is required or available. As with any service it is important to correctly scope the service before commencing delivery. However with other services if necessary the service can be adapted, with business continuity it has to be right the first time there is no room for error or time to adapt. Business continuity does have the benefit of being able to deliver some tangibles such as the workplace recovery locations, these tangibles though rarely lead to a sale. Even those organisations with dedicated Business Continuity resources require the knowledge and skills of an experienced provider to develop a solution that will provide fast and efficient invocation. An experienced Business Continuity consultant is necessary to help:- Generate interest from senior management Understand insurance companies requirements Comply with legislation and regulations Create a plan and risk assessment that delivers buy in from the CEO Demonstrate how the cost of prevention is a lot less than the reactive cost of cure 10

11 Off the peg solutions rarely deliver additional value to customer or partner Summary Many organisations see Business Continuity as a necessity to fulfil legal, corporate or financial requirements. This can lead to the procurement of a solution that is of the off the peg type without the structure and development required to fit the service to the needs of the customer. Such a solution may deliver a perfectly acceptable service if and when a disaster occurs but doesn t deliver any value to the organisation or generate additional revenue for the partner in the mean time. Selling a solution that is not only tailored to the customers requirements but that also helps to gain buy in from the senior executives, making it easier to procure additional services in the future is a specialised and skilled sale. The architecture of such a sale benefits from the use of partners with the correct skills, knowledge and experience to deliver the solution. When selecting such a partner careful consideration should be made of the transparency of the information associated with the risk of selecting one supplier or centre over another. 11

12 We Only Win, When You Win! Phoenix IT Services, Technology House, Hunsbury Hill Avenue, Northampton. NN4 8QS Tel: +44 (0) Fax: +44 (0) Phoenix IT Services and Trend Network Services, Phoenix IT Group and the Phoenix logo are trademarks of Phoenix IT Group, These marks and logos may not be used without our written consent. Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners Phoenix IT Services Ltd. All rights reserved 08/2007