Workforce Planning Is Bigger Than H1N1

With the scare of the upcoming H1N1 pandemic taking centre stage, preparations for this oncoming assault is a priority for most organizations. It's only normal. But, at the same time, sit back and think! H1N1 is not going to be your biggest problem... in fact the H1N1 issue is essentially a short term problem. In my view as a professional executive search consultant, your biggest problem will be leadership succession and general workforce planning. After all, CEOs, Executive Directors, and general staff for that matter will be retiring in droves, and, if not, they may be recruited to more lucrative or challenging roles. Still again, some people will simply jump ship!

What's the result? Your organization, be it a business, a professional association or a not-for-profit, will become wholly short staffed, employee knowledge will walk out the door and, try as hard as you might, you may not be able to find solid, highly-skilled replacements. While this doesn't sound much like an H1N1 emergency, believe me, these failings can be equally as important as the current H1N1 scare and will do the same amount and/or more damage to organizations in the long run.

The lack of a succession plan and/or a workforce plan places an organization at substantial risk, in particular as it refers to the replacement of senior executives. Since the invention of the "lean work machine", there aren't many middle management candidates readily available to step into senior leadership shoes. Not only that, younger people don't have the same values as the baby boomers did, instead, they want family time and life work balance.

So, what can be done? The following tips might be of assistance:

Develop a competency/skills map - identify all of the skills/competencies/talents within your organization and then forecast what is required for the future. Identify the gaps, the surpluses and the future requirements. Don't forget to examine the skills and competencies your employees have and use in their personal/private lives versus their workplace.

Create an employee database - create an EXCEL spreadsheet of all employees and their respective skills. Slot two to three employees into potential roles for every one of your assignments. Create some kind of grading system to indicate whether or not the employee is job ready currently and/or if he/she needs further training.

Create Professional Development Plans - professional development can occur in multiple ways including mentoring, coaching, formal training and project-based stretch assignments or on-the-job training. Examine and plan for the best learning approach for each employee and then create a personal development plan.

Recruit to fill the gaps - in many cases you will need to recruit externally to fill gaps as sometimes there is no way in which to train within your organization to meet the needs. In this case you would be wise to utilize the services of an external search professional who can match your skills and cultural needs. One advantage of this is that it saves time and, typically, these individuals are already in touch with key professionals in your industry.

View a Succession Culture as a priority - succession planning isn't just about those top executives; it is the responsibility of every manager in every department. After all, your organization won't be able to function without specialized teams of professionals. And, if this type of team isn't in place, it can quickly derail the success of a business.

While H1N1 might be an urgent priority, the lack of executive and general succession planning is simply a ticking time bomb. I am confident that this is a risk that no company should want to take. The success strategy in this case is to develop an integrated strategic human resource plan that ensures the recruitment of the right talent, at the right time at the right place.

Paul Croteau, managing partner, is known as one of Manitoba's leading executive search professionals. His more than 25 years of experience in the recruitment of senior management and executive leadership professionals are the foundation to his solid reputation for developing a deep understanding of his clients' needs, enabling him to provide exceptional service and successfully meet the complex challenge of matching the right leader to his clients' business needs.

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Succession Planning: The Summer Vacation Test

What Happens To Companies After The Death Of Their Founder?

There are many examples of family businesses that flourish from generation to generation, while some hugely successful businesses are unable to survive the death of the founder. If both were successful during a founders lifetime, why do some thrive, while others cease to exist.

The success and attraction of certain businesses are tremendously related to the founder, his image, story and reputation. Businesses where that is the case must bring the next generation in "early" in the business cycle, so that there is a seamless transition. Two of the best examples of successfully transitioning a business from one generation to the next, although the founder had a strong image, is P.C. Richards, the New York metro area electronics chain, and SYMS Clothing. In P.C. Richard's case. the emphasis of the advertising has long been on the family, and how the founder passed along his "ethic" from generation to generation. They have always emphasized their reliability and reputation. Sy Syms, founder of SYMS, brought his son and daughter into the business, while he was still running it, and gradually integrated them into their advertising alongside him. Today, Sy Syms is still alive and involved with ads, while his daughter, Marcy is the President of the company and his son is the Vice President. Not only has SYMS been able to maintain itself, last year they purchased the struggling but well-known Filenes Basement chain. Tom Carvel and his gravely voice became almost synonymous with the Carvel Ice Cream brand, and although Tom has long not been involved, and has now passed away, there are often still references to both him, and his promotions.

On the other hand, when Dr. Robert Atkins, the famous low carbohydrate diet advocate and integrative and complementary medicine expert, tragically passed away, and his huge medical practice had to be closed after his demise. His nutritional food company has finally gotten "back on its feet," but for quite a while were unable to thrive because there was no strong identity to take his place and advocate passionately on its behalf.

Loew's Corporation, the giant New York based conglomerate, and New York Stock exchange corporation, was founded by two brothers, Lawrence and Robert Tisch. These men led Loew's with their business acumen, and today their children maintain most of the top positions in the company, and the company has continued successfully. Of course, after Harry and Leona Hemsley had both health and legal difficulties, the value of their once-great empire diminished dramatically.

Family businesses must develop transition plans, and gradually integrate the next generation into the business, as well as continuously give the next generation more and more responsibility, and visibility. The companies that thrive continuously do this, while those that don't often suffer. A great example of a once-great empire that did not adequately plan for its founder's death was the Los Angeles Dodgers sports franchise. When Walter O'Malley died, there was inadequate estate planning in place, and the family was forced to sell the Dodgers to be able to pay substantial estate taxes.

As the adage goes, "Plan ahead. It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark."

Richard Brody has over 30 years consultative sales, marketing, training, managerial, and operations experience. He has trained sales and marketing people in numerous industries, given hundreds of seminars, appeared as a company spokesperson on over 200 radio and television programs, and regularly blogs on real estate, politics, economics, management, leadership, negotiations, conferences and conventions, etc. Richard has negotiated, arranged and/ or organized hundreds of conferences and conventions. Richard is a Senior Consultant with RGB Consultation Services, an Ecobroker, a Licensed Buyers Agent (LBA) and Licensed Salesperson in NYS, in real estate.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Richard_Brody

Steps For Designing a Crisis Management Plan

There are six steps for defining a crisis management plan that can be easily remembered using the word "CRISIS." Each letter of the word stands for a critical step that is necessary to be prepared to deal with a crisis. If you want to be fully prepared for an emergency, then go through each of these steps:

* Complete a threat analysis: Before you begin any planning or preparation, the smart thing to do is to do a threat analysis to consider likely crisis situations. This is usually done in a brain storming session by contemplating a list of likely disasters. These could include natural disasters like storms or earthquakes or it could include man-made disasters like terrorist bombs or war. Other crisis situations might result from loss of key data, computer systems, or cyber intrusion. Although crisis planning usually is focused on these extreme situations, it would also be possible to include possible threats from competitors, loss of key accounts, or unwanted publicity due to misconduct by key employees. During the threat analysis phase, it is usually best to consider the widest possible range of crisis situations for your organization, and decide later which are the ones that you want to plan for in the next step - scenario planning.
* Review possible contingencies - scenario planning: Now that you have listed the possible threats and crisis situations that your organization might face, it is appropriate to define which ones are the most likely and perhaps most threatening. Some situations might be obvious. For example, if your building is located near a major river that is known to flood the area periodically, then this is a scenario for which you will want to prepare. Other threats may not be as likely, but if they did occur, would be devastating. For example the treat of a cyber-terrorist attack targeted at your firm might seem remote; however, if it or a similar event occurred that caused the loss of all your important electronic files and computer systems it might be an unrecoverable event unless you had a plan. So, the key to this step is to select the most important contingencies and define the possible scenario in more detail. In other words, if this particular contingency occurred, what would the scenario look like? Defining what the situation would look like will help to define the recovery plans for that scenario.
* Identify critical preparations: After you have done some planning for the most likely or important scenarios, examine the critical preparations that must be put in place. These could be critical infrastructure like prepositions supplies, emergency kits, or back-up electrical generators. It could also be other "hot sites" for computers or data centers that would take over in the event of loss of your primary data centers. It might also include more mundane preparations like emergency calling trees, home addresses and cell phone numbers for critical personnel.
* Select and appoint a crisis management team: After you have planned for scenarios, and identified critical preparations, then you must select and appoint a crisis management team. If you have multiple scenarios, then you might have different people designated for the team depending upon the situation. Most importantly, designate a clear chain of command for the team to take charge during a crisis. They must not only have the responsibility, but also the authority to act and make decisions. If both the lines of responsibility and authority are not clear, then there will be confusion and arguments among the team when the crisis erupts which will cause them to loose focus and valuable time better spent in dealing with the actual crisis itself. If there are critical decision points where the team must get permission from the CEO or other key official, then they must understand their scope of authority to act and how to quickly reach the final authority during the crisis. Defining the key players and how decisions will get made is important to the success of the crisis management plan. Once the team is in place, they need to be trained and have an opportunity to work together as they review the plans.
* Inform & educate everyone: Once the plans and team is defined, then it is important to inform and educate everyone else. Explain important procedures like evacuation drills, emergency exits, and what is expected under the various likely scenarios. In large office complexes, you might designate assembly areas outside the building, and have people on every floor designated to do a final sweep to account for everyone during a building evacuation. Other scenarios might require educating receptionists to understand what to do if they get a bomb threat and what information to listen for when receiving the call. Thus, make sure that everyone in the organization at least understands the basics of what they might be expected to do when a crisis erupts.
* Support practice, debriefing and ongoing planning: Planning is never perfect, but it can be refined through practice. It takes a commitment by senior management to support practice drills and spend the time to review what happened during the practice sessions to refine the plan. One would hope that the plans would never need to be exercised in a real crisis; however, there is no substitute for a well rehearsed plan when a crisis occurs. Most crisis plans should be practiced at least once per year, and the plan should be updated. Key personnel will change, information and phone numbers will need to be confirmed, and key parts of the plan might need to be refreshed. It will be of little use to pull out an out-of-date plan during a crisis only to find out that the information is wrong or that the plan will not work because of changed circumstances.

The key to success in a crisis is having a realistic plan ready to execute. Good prior planning will identify not only the necessary steps, but also the required advance preparation of supplies, people, and training. Use the steps of "CRISIS" format and be ready to deal with the emergencies that your organization might face. You will be glad to have invested the time in advance of the situation.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Leonard_Kloeber

Business Adversity And Disaster Recovery Planning

The best laid schemes of mice and men is a phrase originating from a Robert Burns' poem 'To a Mouse' written in1786. The poem is an apology from the author to the mouse for accidentally upturning the mouses' nest while ploughing a field. And the phrase itself is colloquially used to describe that even the most careful planning can be undone by unexpected circumstances or events.

Most Information Technology professionals today would be familiar with this phrase or a similar variation. Why? Because Information Technology projects can be large and complex making them susceptible to unexpected problems. It has certainly been my experience that most large projects and organizations factor for the 'best laid schemes of mice and men' variable in their change management and risk management practices.

But even the security offered by change management, risk management, backups and redundancy is not enough these days for many organizations that stake their survival on online services or transactions. This is primarily because backups and redundancy are usually designed to cater for a single component failure. For example, if a network link drops then a secondary link takes over. But what happens if multiple components fail at once due to a natural disaster, sabotage, security incident, health related outbreak or core services failure?

The result from such a catastrophic failure can be devastating to a business, especially if there has been no planning on how to restore what took years to build up in just a few short hours or days.

This type of planning is the domain of Disaster Recovery (DR) plans. Even the most stable and well designed networks are not immune to the aforementioned risks and many businesses mitigate this risk through the creation, implementation and testing of disaster recovery planning.

DR plans should cover as many aspects of service restoration as possible. This includes but is not limited to;

· The absence of key personnel
· A communication plan
· A risk assessment
· Technical tools
· Key contact details
· Procedures

Most importantly, DR plans are a living document. That is they are never complete due to the fact that the business environment around them changes and those changes have to be reflected back into the plan in order to keep it up to date and effective.

Is your business prepared for a disaster? Learn more about business continuity and disaster recovery planning here.

DR is not just the domain of large corporations, however. Small business network solutions should also include a disaster recovery plan because disasters don't discriminate.

Andres Villalva B.IT, AssDip(Eng), CCNP, MasterCNE is a co-founder of IT-Pathways.com and writes articles based on over fifteen years of experience in the Information Technology industry.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andres_Villalva

Dealing With Disaster - Keeping Your Business Afloat

Catastrophes happen on a daily basis, and all companies must have a plan in place to stay in business. You might be new, with just a few months under your belt and having invested your life savings to pursue your entrepreneurial dream. Or possibly you are a well-established, extremely successful business owner. Either scenario, and all those in between, could destroy your business in seconds. A fire, earthquake, tornado or other disaster can and does happen.

Are you prepared? The Institute for Business and Home Safety states that when disasters force businesses to shut down, 25% will never reopen. So how do you keep your business afloat if you become a victim of a disaster?

A business continuity plan is essential. The Houston Area Research Center cites these statistics in support of the investment of time and money into creating a plan:

* 35 - 40 percent of businesses disrupted by a disaster without a continuity plan never reopen.
* The 5-year average of U.S. disaster losses is $2.5 billion (pre Katrina).
* Every dollar spent on disaster preparedness saves $7 in recovering disaster related economic losses.

Your ability to reopen quickly is imperative. The sooner you are back in business, the less you'll suffer from lost revenues. Customers will be retained because they are aware you're down time will be minimal. And, extremely important, are your employees. As a business owner, you'll want to get them all back to work so they and their families don't experience a financial hardship.

Top 10 questions to ask yourself:

1. What disasters could we face (natural and man-made)?
2. What operations are critical to open quickly?
3. Do we have a data backup in place to be able to access our records from any location?
4. Who are our key resources (utilities, insurance agent, CPA, etc.)?
5. Who are our key suppliers and do they have a business continuity plan?
6. Do we have a relationship established to ensure we will be one of the first served?
7. Where can we set up a temporary location, and who will direct the process?
8. What supplies, inventory and equipment will be needed immediately?
9. Is our employee call chain up to date, and does each employee know what their role is in our disaster plan?
10. Do we have an inventory of all of our assets so we can complete an insurance claim quickly and thoroughly?

Though this is just the tip of the iceberg in business continuity planning, it is a good start to begin the necessary steps for preparedness. Without a plan, the odds are far greater that you will not re-open if you're forced to close.

It can be a time-consuming process to complete a thorough business continuity plan. Investing in a firm to create it for you will ensure it is finalized quickly and professionally.

Cindy Hartman is President of Hartman Inventory, a woman-owned business that provides business and home inventory services. She and her husband also own Hartman Inventory Systems, a complete turnkey home inventory business package for those who want to establish their own inventory company. She is an owner of Business Continuity Planning Specialists, which was created with the small business owners' needs and budgets in mind. Cindy writes a blog and is also a freelance writer on topics of disaster preparedness and recovery, small business, personal property inventory, product reviews, marketing and networking.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cindy_Hartman

Creating a Business Continuity Management Policy

A Business Continuity Management (BCM) Policy should define your Organizations strategy in relation to maintaining what is considered the Key Processes of a robust business continuity program.
The BCM Policy will confirm the organizations commitment to define and document all of the procedures and processes that must be implemented, maintained and tested in order to achieve the levels of resilience and recover-ability required by the business.

The BCM Policy should enable your organization to:

* Prevent or reduce the likelihood of unscheduled disruptions to the business functions and critical services by the consideration of prudent levels of protection and redundancy for its business processes; and
* Provide the information, procedures and processes required to achieve the recovery of key business functions to alternate premises within the required timeframes.

The BCM Policy scope should always include coverage for all the business functions and units of your organization.

Key Policy Attributes:
The following policy attributes should be specifically mandated:

* The Business Continuity Management Structure is to manage the program on an ongoing basis. This structure is to include a Sponsor from within Senior Management, a Business Continuity Manager, and a Crisis Management Team that consists of members of the Senior Management.
* Business Impact Analyses (BIA's) are to be conducted on all business units. These analyses will determine the level of continuity planning that is required by each unit, as well as define the period of time after which outages of business process become unacceptable. The BIA will provide the cost / impact justification necessary to support the implementation of the various continuity strategies.
* Potential Areas of Risk are to be Identified as a component of their continuity programs. Potential risk points are to be assessed for either mitigation or acceptance. Acceptance of risk points will occur at the Senior Management level. The mitigation or elimination of potential risk points will be cost justified by the potential impact of the failure of the particular risk point.
* Strategies are to be Developed which reflect the requirements identified in the BIA's. Strategies are to be reviewed on an on-going basis to ensure that they continue to remain effective taking into consideration changing business requirements.
* Continuity Plans are to be developed, documented and maintained to ensure that strategies can be readily actioned. The plans are to enable the resumption of critical business processes at alternate locations within the time periods specified in the BIA process.
* Education and Training is to be provided to all staff on the overall response to a disaster incident. The education should be performed regularly so that all staff are reminded of what will happen and what will be expected of them in a disaster or crisis situation. All new staff should be exposed to the education as part of their induction program
* Ongoing Testing of Continuity Capability will be carried out in order to prove its overall fitness for purpose as defined by the BIA process, as well as to identify errors and issues with existing plans, documentation, and procedures.
* The Recovery and Continuity Capability is to be maintained in a constant state of readiness so as to provide the best possible means of recovering from a catastrophic incident affecting any of business locations.

About the Author:
Jake Whistlle is part of the Customer Services team at Disaster Recovery Services Pty Ltd (DRS). DRS is a certified Business Continuity Services provider. DRS offer a a large variety of tools and contingency management related templates to enable any organization develop and maintain a professional business continuity program.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jake_Whistle

Survival Kit for Women and Children

Daily, we read the news about the sufferings of thousands of women and children being beaten, abducted, raped and murdered. While this issue is much more pronounced in recent years the problem has not disappeared yet. Many people think just because they are not those who have suffered or those in their kinship, they are sadly mistaken.

Millions of women and children suffer from one or more of these harmful detrimental evils. There are some ways you can help prevent this, but none is better than the team of both women and children empowered enough to protect themselves from abusers. As a former subject of being a victim, I, have one of my missions in life to assist those who have suffered like the way I did. I want people to be able to protect themselves so they can live to see next day of their life.

Personal safety relief supplies which I prefer for women and children and even men, will have the capability to protect themselves at a level they could never thought possible.

The unavoidable personal safety survival kit for women is the one which should be possessed by every woman. This kit gives much of the necessary materials and instructions to women on how to protect themselves adequately. Some of the wonderful pepper spray, personal alarms, whistles, flashlights and more are included in this survival kit. One of the best features that many other kits do not include is the instructions on how to defend yourself successfully. Remember, knowledge is power!

Among other relief supplies available are those for college and university students, apartment residents, office works and even for home as security kit technologies. Each survival kit is designed for a particular location and scenario and you should get at least one which suits your scenario.

When you obtain one of these relief supplies kits in preparation for security defense, you will become better knowledgeable on defending yourselves. Many of these survival kits are designed especially for women and children. They come with instructions on how best to defend a life of security and many of them come with manuals and DVD. With the ample of information included, it is much easier to be protected when danger approaches.

Women and children are quite vulnerable to attack. They are often smaller and physically weaker than men having no opportunity to defend themselves with dominated strength. With a few pieces of safety equipment and a little instruction, you can change obvious course of this global life lead by women and children. You will not be another victim of this epidemic of violence against women and children.

Take your time and money and put it towards something that can do well by saving your life. The UN Supplier is the best in the globe to take care of your protection. Take a set of personal safety for your child and woman making yourself and your family a favorable support forever. Protect yourself and your family against violence today by contacting "UN Supplier" for survival kit and equipments

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=George_W_Thomas

Climate-Controlled Goods and Business Continuity

If you're responsible for storing or moving products which need to be stored at a specific temperature, you will need to have some kind of business continuity plan to avoid, in the event of anything going wrong, losing business and devaluing your reputation.

It's worth thinking about the recent events which caused many businesses serious problems.

Consider, for example, the recent problems caused in Europe by the volcanic ash cloud. Planes could not fly at all for a significant period and even following this passengers experienced delays for many weeks afterwards.

The impact was huge. Business that move refrigeration containers and goods which need to be stored at a certain temperature must have alternate back-up plans in place.

The types of items this would affect include vaccines. These pharmaceuticals will deteriorate rapidly and can be rendered useless if they are not stored at the correct temperature. This has health implications and can lead to the wastage of significant amounts of money.

It's true that transporting by air is the fastest way of moving goods which require refrigeration. However, as the situation outlined above shows, this isn't always possible. A continuity plan must be in place which incorporates an alternative mode of transport.

Refrigerated storage units are available which are specifically designed to carry pharmaceutical products such as vaccines and other high-value, critical items which need to be kept at a strictly regulated temperature. These units are built from modified refrigerated containers and can easily be transported anywhere globally.

It is also important to temperature monitor. You can do this remotely using the latest sophisticated technology. All you need to do is log in remotely and check that the temperature has remained constant.

A belt and braces approach is advisable. For extra reassurance a contingency plan is essential, especially when it comes to high-value goods such as vaccines and other drugs. Most companies use two distinct cold storage systems, so should one go down, the other will be activated. This means cooling will stay constant.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sarah_Cornish

What Is the Difference Between RTO and RPO?

I often get asked the question "What is the difference between RTO and RPO?"

The answerer is not as mysterious as if would first appear. But let's step back a little and understand what the terms RTO and RPO actually mean first.

RTO, or Recovery Time Objective, is essentially the maximum amount of time a business can afford for a system or application to be unavailable.

In the early days of Disaster Recovery, before Business Continuity was really considered in much detail (see my article on Disaster Recovery or Business Continuity) RTO was largely dictated by budget. Basically you decided which computer system, or systems you wanted to be covered by a "Disaster Recovery" service and subscribed to usually what was described as a "Warm Recovery" (again, see my article on Disaster Recovery or Business Continuity).

When the service was required (or invoked) following a disruption the computer systems(s) would be made available for use, typically within four hours. You then had to add the time to get to the site where the computer system(s) were located (or wait if they were being delivered to a site of your choice) and restore via a backup of some sort, usually tape; assuming they had not been lost in the disaster (not as uncommon as you might think!). This would usually be followed by user acceptance testing (UAT), and finally handed over as a live system.

If all went well, which usually depended on how well the recovery plan had been tested, the required system(s) would be available within 24 hours of the incident (or T+24). This would be defined as having a RTO of 24 hours for the chosen system(s) and applications(s).

Obviously systems and applications not covered by the Disaster Recovery contract could have a significantly longer RTO; this is where a sound Threat Assessment and Business Impact Analysis (along with budget) would assist in determining which systems and applications would be covered (please see my other articles for details on Threat Assessment and Business Impact Analysis for more information).

RTOs can range from zero to weeks (or even months) depending on the criticality and budget of the business concerned. It is quite acceptable to have different RTOs for individual systems or applications depending on criticality and risk appetite. I will be covering risk appetite in more detail in my BS 25999 articles.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Paul_E_Moore

Step One in Business Continuity: Protect Workplace Email

What happens in your business when you cannot get your email?

When some part of your network fails such as a server or your broadband connection, the first and perhaps most significant impact to any business is normally your email. A few minutes without email may be manageable but what about a few hours or a few days?

Email has become undeniably an integral part of most businesses, representing a critical form of business communication. However so many people continue to leave themselves vulnerable to expensive downtime and server failures. By not implementing a back-up alternative for your email you are accepting that it is fine for your business business to be totally cut off from receiving and sending email... which means ignoring potential customers, suppliers, fellow staff, current clients and so on which isn't always the best way to present your business communication skills to the world.

Staff can't work because their emails down? No more excuses

It is perfectly legit for staff to claim that their ability to work is severely limited and in some cases completely halted because they cannot access their email accounts. This is often the case as offices around the world, whether in huge corporations or small businesses rely increasingly on electronic communications, namely email. People save important information and reminders within their email and often the only place that they have a particular contacts email address saved is on the 'from' line of the last email they received from them.

So in order to turn such justifiable reasons for not working during downtime into cop out excuses that will not be accepted, it is imperative that smart business owners have a solution in place to ensure that staff will always receive their email regardless of server failures and planned or unplanned downtime. By protecting your staffs email you can simultaneously protect your office's productivity and your organisation's reputation as dependable, professional and contactable, in the eyes of partners, potential clients and the outside world in general.

Downtime cannot be perfectly calculated and yes it costs money!

Making work email always available and fully functional is a smart and some would say essential move in organisations of all sizes. Like most things in life we take the availability of our email for granted. It's just expected to be there and working but unfortunately it's far from being that reliable.

According to Dunn & Bradstreet, 59% of Fortune 500 companies experience a minimum of 1.6 hours of downtime per week.

The problem is that many business owners wrongly assume that they may have some level of control over such downtime, that it will resonate from internal technologies and so their IT manager or outsourced providers will either know when it's going off or be able to fix it immediately if it's unplanned. Unfortunately ITs a little more fickle than that and downtime rarely keeps to a schedule, plus short of your IT department being manned by superheroes I think it's fair to say that extended periods of downtime cannot be avoided at times. Then think of the costs...

You have to be realistic and think of the extended scenarios that have the potential to take your business down. The threats to your business could include both naturalevents as well as man-made events, what the IT Director notes as "weather and wires."

So if you were to lose your email for the rest of toady... what would that mean for you?

The answer's pretty grim isn't it? Ok it might not force the company to close but just think of how much your workload would steadily increase by with every hour that passes. Or the cost of missing out on that deal you've worked hard for because you didn't get the email requesting pricing or additional info. Plus one can only imagine the reputation that can be ruined by failing to turn up to that big meeting that you missed because the details where inside and email...

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Danielle_C

Data Disasters Recovery Plans - Creating One

Every single one of us who uses a computer for fun or for work has been faced with turning on our machine one day and finding that it simply didn't work. You immediately turn it off, and try to restart it, and are greeting with a blank screen and immediate panic. If you lost everything that was housed on your personal computer, how great would that loss be?

Consider then how much more horrific that loss would be if it encompassed every single bit of data that was housed on a network of business computers. Could your company survive that kind of loss and still be able to do business normally? The answer, of course, is a resounding "No". No business could survive the total loss of data and the resultant confusion and chaos that would take place if the data was not housed in a secure off-site storage facility so that it was able to be readily retrieved.

If you are in business, even small to mid-sized business, and have not considered or given serious thought to a data disaster, as well as preplanned a recovery from that data loss, the fact is that your business is a time bomb waiting to explode. A single spilled soft drink or an intense thunderstorm may be all that it would take to leave you stranded without the data that your company needs to survive.

Every business needs to create a data disaster recovery plan for use in the event of a disaster of any magnitude. Bear in mind that a disaster doesn't necessarily mean a storm, or events such as a fire, but could simply be a single hacker entering your system and corrupting the information that is housed there. You and your business need a data disaster recovery plan to help you to cope and to stay open with minimal down time to your business.

Creating a Data Disaster Recovery Plan

Creating a viable data disaster recovery plan means planning for more than a hurricane or a thunderstorm. It means planning any conceivable way in which you may lose data and then working to prevent that from taking place. Secure off-site data storage and an easy retrieval plan is a necessity when you are in business. Once you have completed the disaster recovery plan for your business and your data, be sure that every employee or worker has a copy of that plan, that it is spelled out what the plan entails and that a copy of that disaster recovery plan is stored off-site along with the data that you are trying to protect.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dave_L_Roberts

Importance of a Business Continuity Disaster Recovery Plan

When things go *Boom* in the night...

Heck, how about when things go *boom* during the day? It is every techs worst nightmare:

"Uh, the server won't boot up."

"What does this smoke rolling out of the back of the server mean?"

"We lost all power to our building last night, and when the power company turned it on this morning; we heard a 'pop' sound."

As you might have already guessed, this quarter we're going to talk about the disaster recovery - specifically the financial implications that should drive your disaster recovery plan. Notice how I didn't say anything about fires/floods/lightening/hurricanes/tornados/earthquakes/etc? Yes, depending on where you live, every one of those is a very real threat. I didn't talk about them, because statistically speaking, you are more likely to be robbed and have everything stolen than for one of those to happen. And because servers are electronics, any one of the average, ordinary problems is far more likely to happen than theft.

First of all, I thought I would tackle some definitions:

Backup - the process of generating multiple copies of data to prevent data loss. At a minimum your backup should follow the 3-2-1 Rule of Backup.

Disaster Recovery Plan - The complete process for securing and protecting your data. Disaster Recovery (DR) includes backups, the testing of those backups, the security of those backups in a secure offsite storage location, and the plan for using those backups to recover from a disaster. You need a sense of serenity.

Business Continuity Plan - The complete process for resumption of business. Business Continuity is significantly more far reaching in scope, and includes your Disaster Recovery plan, plus considerations for things like insurance policies, where your business will work from if something happens to your building, how you get a hold of your employees, customers, and vendors, how you get your phones working again. It is the "a [insert disaster here] happened and we lost everything - what does it take to get us back up and running" plan.

Now we have some basic definitions to work from, and in November I talked about the 3-2-1 Rule of Backups so I'm not going to go into backups a lot.

Here is the reality of the situation - disaster recovery plans would be better off to be named "data recovery insurance plans" and it would be easier to understand their importance. We all understand that with insurance, the better coverage/protection you require, the more expensive the policy. DR is very much a risk vs. cost analysis that must be done. Before you can really start building your Disaster Recovery Plan, you need to know the answer to 3 questions:

1. If your server(s) were to go down, and you had no access to your data, what is the hourly cost to your business? This seems like it should be easy to find, but it's normally not. There are several items that normally go into calculating this number.

a. What is your employee cost per hour if they aren't/can't work? If you have 10 people who make $35k per year, by the time you figure benefits things like Social Security / Medicare / etc., the cost per hour would be somewhere around $210 per hour. Since we just finished out the year, you can take your 2010 payroll, add benefits and payroll taxes, and divide by 2080 business hours in a year to get a pretty close number.

b. For every hour you are down, how many hours does it take you to catch up? A lot of our customers can function on a limited basis by hand-writing everything, but when their system comes up there is a ton of work to get done to get caught up. Is it a 1 to 1 ratio? Is it 30 minutes per hour down? Or is it 2 hours per hour down? Are you going to have to pay overtime to get caught up?

c. What sales/revenue did you not capture while your systems were down? Hopefully it is as easy as saying "I'm sorry, our system is down- can I call you back when it comes up?" and everything is fine. But what if your time is also revenue? Attorneys can't work on files, which means no billing. Accountants can't access client files, which means no billing. A lot of physicians can't check patients in/out or access their electronic charts, which means no billing. Financial institutions are time sensitive down to seconds! I've seen this number range from $10 to $10,000 per hour.

d. Are there other costs to your organization? This is for you to decide - try to put a realistic number on it and add it to your hourly cost total.

2. What is your Recovery Point Objective (RPO)?

a. Recovery Point Objective is an industry term referring to how often we are running backups. Simply put, if I walked into your office and said "We got everything back up and running, but I lost all of the data for the last hour." -What does that mean for your organization? What if it was everything for the last day? The last 2 days? The last week?

b. How long would it take someone to recreate lost data? Can it even be recreated? If it is gone forever, what happens?

3. What is your Recovery Time Objective?

a. Recovery Time Objective is another industry term, this one referring to how long before the system is up and running again and regular business is resumed.

b. What if I told you we only lost 15 minutes worth of data, but it took 8 hours to get your people back to work?

c. Is that better or worse than losing 1 day worth of data but having everyone back to work in one hour?

Earlier I said that your disaster recovery plan should be driven by your risk vs. cost analysis. Now that we understand your risk tolerance, we can balance it out with an appropriately priced solution to mitigate that risk. High risk tolerance usually means lower priced DR solutions, and of course the opposite it true - low risk tolerance usually means higher priced solution. Understanding the financial implications of your disaster recovery plan is always the first step towards success!


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jamie_Mathy

FNOL Execution in Inclement Conditions

When utilizing FNOL (first notice of loss) operations, it is critical to stay technologically astute, harnessing all available venues to maximize the client experience. This is seldom more apparent than during times of inclement meteorological conditions, which will be explored in a specific case below. Data must be integrated across all contact methods, including telephonic, e-mail, fax, and direct web entry, for consolidated reporting and may be filtered by contact method if needed. Individual notices should immediately transmit via automated e-mail or fax to any number of recipients, based on the location, type of report and other criteria. Scheduled summary reports must also be available, allowing regular electronic distribution of reports daily, weekly, monthly, or by custom period to multiple recipients based on level of management within an organization.

VoIP solutions are invaluable in enhancing telephonic intake by quickly connecting intake specialists with policyholder account information. Call switch statistics must be available for management reporting by individual incoming number. With these tools, FNOL complete call statistics and all associated time tracking may be summarized and archived down to thirty-minute intervals.

To maintain quality standards, trainers and supervisors in first notice of loss monitor daily, listening to live calls and recordings in conjunction with remote observation of FNOL intake. All calls should be recorded, then stored as.wav files and made readily accessible. Using RightFax, FNOL call centers can also log and distribute in- and out-bound faxes and e-mails for efficient and fully accountable document management. Thorough, advanced organization is key to achieving FNOL success.

In a specific case, when most of Atlanta, including schools, had been shut down for 3 days, effective first notice of loss was needed more than ever for businesses and organizations throughout the area. Though uncommon for the Atlanta area, strong snowstorms do sometimes occur, crippling the region. Lack of snow removal equipment combined with a storm that dumped nearly 6 inches in less than 3 hours created numerous problems. Only a combination of technological prowess and careful planning can achieve success in such conditions. FNOL intake specialists were put in local hotels to manage call volume, in addition to remote intake specialists contributing from around the country. Through advanced and adaptive strategies, and a dedicated and interconnected workforce, even a city paralyzed in snow and ice can mitigate its losses.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Paul_Neleman

Disaster Preparedness - 3 Key Steps to Prepare Your Business

Preparing for a catastrophic disaster (fire, tornado, etc.) is essential for every business owner. The Ad Council reported that, based on a recent national survey, only 38% of businesses have an emergency plan in place. Strangely, 90% said that it is "somewhat" or "very" important for businesses to prepare. There is obviously a discrepancy between what business owners know they need and actually do it.

Taking care of customers, fulfilling orders, meeting with potential customers and all the other daily activities required of a small-to-medium sized business owner, make it difficult to find the time to create a disaster plan. Awareness for the need of a plan to deal with business interruption is high. Execution of this awareness falls short.

Disaster preparedness, or a business continuity plan, increases a business' security and stability. This plan also provides an intangible - but very real - benefit. It also provides peace of mind for the owner as well as the employees.

The Department of Homeland Security's website offers a significant amount of information to assist business owners in creating a continuity/disaster recovery plan. Three key steps towards disaster recovery are:

Protectyour investment

- Review your insurance coverage annually with your insurance agent

- Inform your insurance agent of any major changes during the year

- Create an inventory of all business assets

- Back up all records with an encrypted, on-line backup service

Planto stay in business

- Create a written emergency procedures checklist

- Compile an emergency contact list

- Determine a potential alternative business location

- Secure backup suppliers

Talk to your employees

- Get your employees' involvement and buy-in to the process

- Advise your staff of emergency supplies that your business can provide

- Develop, communicate and practice an evacuation plan

These are just the beginning, but a very important start. Proper planning now will help ensure recovery from a disaster of any kind, from a computer crash to total destruction from a fire or natural disaster. This proactive measure will help ensure that your business can recover and reopen quickly. But there is more to this than just reopening - you are honoring your commitment to your employees, customers and the local economy.

Schedule blocks of time on your calendar to create your plan. It is important enough to set time aside for this very time-consuming task. If time and manpower are not available, there are many business continuity planning companies that can help you create your plan. They will learn about your business, your facility and your processes. Then they will create a plan specific to your needs.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cindy_Hartman