Business Continuity: Practical Solutions Pre-event!
After 30 years working with customers and clients as they deal with either a personal or business crisis, it is rewarding to have the opportunity to work with them in pre-loss conditions hoping they will never have to implement the response plan you are helping to create. However, odds are not in their favor nothing will ever happen! Small incidents like a frozen pipe, a faulty sprinkler head, while not a major event, can be quite costly! Knowing how you would or should “react” is critical to saving dollars and reducing the risks. I like to say it is a matter of being pro-active versus reactive!
In light of all the bad news that floods the media, people still remain complacent…“it will never happen to me!” Historically, an increased sense of urgency to plan for disasters is top of mind immediately after a regional or national weather event, but that sense urgency fades with each passing day or week as the event passes. True business continuity is a process that never ends. It is driven internally within a company by an individual or group of individuals that have the unenviable task of making it part of a company’s culture. Unfortunately, most of those that have written those 3 -4 inch binders are placed on the shelf as a completed project versus a tool that must be constantly updated and tested. For years, Business Continuity and Business Recovery Plans have been a priority within IT Departments. Facility personnel and property managers are not quite as focused on the “what if” testing that goes on in the IT world. They have day to day issues that usually cloud the inevitability of a real issue with serious financial impact threatening the viability of a company. If we recover the data but cannot produce what we are selling because of a fire, flood or environmental event, where are we? How patient will your customers be if you are a supply chain vendor and you are holding up production of the finished product?
What can go wrong? In the past 30 – 90 days, we have had forest fires out west, Hurricane Irene impacting the Atlantic and Northeast, Tropical Storm Lee impacting rivers and flooding whole communities and businesses and now intense Santa Ana winds impacting the Western US…and these are just the natural disasters. What about the fire that starts up in production line machine igniting the hydraulic fluids that surrounded it, the sprinkler head that was sheered by a carless fork lift operator etc…? Are you ready? What can be done? Who is in charge when an event occurs? What are the critical functions that must be brought up first? Pre-planning can help to prepare a company to withstand an event should one hit. Part of the planning process should be to test the plan. Will it work as designed? I remember doing a table top exercise for a Fortune 500 company 6 years ago. With those sitting around the table, it was clear that at least 3 people thought they were in charge if a fire impacted the corporate headquarters…a interesting problem to have that must get worked out pre-event. I just found out through one of our response vendors that they were doing a fire in the corporate facility…good thing they had a plan!
Working with CIRCUMSPEX, a facility centric web-based planning tool, we focus on building contingencies. Developed by a team of restoration, homeland security software developers, certified property managers with extensive restoration experience, the program benefited from “real life” scenarios in the developmental process. Un-like most disaster planning solutions on the market, it is inexpensive and user friendly. It is also more robust than other solutions on the market. While the program identifies several tabs where critical information is stored, like Risk assessment, Business Continuity, Critical Processes, Life Safety and a robust section that are focused on Building Specifications and Critical Equipment.
Written by: Jim Wills
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