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Disaster Planning - How important is it to you!
By Anthony Goh
I have been extracting Marketing Case Studies from Jim Aitchison's "How Asia Advertises" for the past six issues. Frankly speaking, I am a bit sick of it. Having to extract articles from one source and post it onto the newsletters. Oh man, time for me to have a change in my contribution for this issue of the newsletter. So, finally, I have decided to pick up my pen and start writing something from my own mind.
And so, that starts the ball rolling for my first article…Disaster Planning. The inspiration of writing this article came when I was reading Dan Blacharski's article on Disaster Planning: Preparing for the Worst. Come to think of it, there are a lot of SMEs or SMBs in Singapore that may not have a concrete disaster recovery plan in place in their business operations. Business owners in Singapore may be very good in their business planning. Planning how to achieve their S$5mil profits in a year; planning how to increase their market shares; planning how to outbeat their competitors in the price war; planning this and planning that… However, there is one thing which these business owners failed to plan. That is disaster recovery planning. This is the most important part of management planning in any businesses which had been neglected. In view of the 9/11 incidence in 2001, the war against terrorists is ever on-going. This is not going to take a year or two but may take forever. Besides that, disasters have been striking other parts of the world during the past years and months. Perhaps you can recall the Asian Tsunami which happened last year's December. This incidence has been lingering in many people's mind, especially the victims and those who have lost their immediate families and friends in the disaster. Who would have expected that the Tsunami wave would attack Phukit Island? Who would have expected also that this attack would claim so many lives and caused businesses to come to a stand still for a while on the island? To business owners, when such disaster occur, it will literary destroy, not only their assets, but also their businesses. However, if a recovery plan is in place, at least part of its business can be savaged. I refer to Dan Blacharski's article on his experience while working for a company back in 1989.
The author mentioned in his article that during that time, there was a massive Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco. As the company he was working with had a disaster plan and many other companies did not, this company started operating out of the ballroom of the Mark Hopkins hotel almost immediately. The old office was destroyed, but an old-fashioned "phone tree" rounded up the usual top executives and brought them all together and get down to business while other companies were foundering about, losing billions of dollars.
This lesson actually thought us that disaster plan may be based on technology, but it goes beyond that. Just make sure that there are two or three point persons who have everyone's phone number is an invaluable part of the disaster recovery plan.
In light with the recent hurricane-related disasters, this may be a ringing bell for SMEs and SMBs in Singapore to revisit their disaster preparation plans, if they have it, or to create one if they do not have it immediately. This will help to savage part of their businesses from those lost in the disasters.
Take for instance, if you are killed in a bomb attack, who will be the second man in charge of your company to ensure that business will still continue even though you are not around?
Moreover, in the present day's business operation, many businesses are fond of outsourcing their productions or data storages to other countries such as China or India. Are you joining this pool of businesses in the outsourcing trend? What about your overseas' outsourcers? Do they have backups and disaster recovery plans? If not, what must you do?
In Dan Blacharski's article, he mentioned that when creating and reviewing your plan, it would be worthwhile to take a look at Gartner Group's list of six myths about business continuity management and disaster recovery. Gartner points out that there are no cut-and-dried rules about recovery strategies, no boilerplate, and no one-size-fits-all checklist. There are, however, some best practices to follow, and some common misconceptions to avoid. All these will help to gear up the disaster plans of businesses to ensure that there are some backups for businesses to ensure business continuation should a disaster strikes.
[http://www.edux.com.sg/newsletter/newsletter7_1.html]
About the Author
Anthony Goh is a renowned writer in Singapore's IT industry. He has a wide range of experience writing articles for newsletters in Singapore.
Article Source: http://www.simplysearch4it.com/article/14923.html
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