Business Continuity

Business continuity and disaster recovery planning; Challenges and Potential

solutions; Role of IS Management

Introduction

The Business Continuity Management (BCM) best practices and standards need to be

customized to suit organizational culture and BCM requirements. When this customization is not

practical and sensible, the implementation of BCM projects will be ineffective.

Key Issues, Challenges and Resolutions in Implementing Business Continuity

Projects

1. Senior management’s commitment and involvement



The senior management delegate responsibility of BCM initiatives to middle

management



BCM initiatives are undertaken only for compliance purposes



Lack of collaboration between business and IT



Too much focus on technology at the cost of other organizational resources such as

people, premises, data, processes and supplies



Lack of consensus about recovery parameters (RTO and RPO) between senior

management and operations management



Not following a single BCM framework / standard when developing business continuity

and disaster recovery plans for multiple offices within an organization

This challenge is resolved by setting up a cross functional project steering committee that

consists of key stake holders. The committee should meet periodically (e.g. every one to two

weeks) to resolve issues, if any, in project execution

2. Lack of thorough understanding of the data dynamics and dependencies involved in data

recovery by BCM practitioners



Keeping data on the end-user computing systems outside enterprise backup



Addressing failover to an alternate site, and not focusing on the need to move operations

back to a restored primary location, which can be as problematic as the failover itself

Solution:



Regular testing and training in IT Business Continuity Plan.



Engaging users in order to thoroughly understand business dynamics

3. Incorrect and / or inappropriate assumptions...