Filed under: KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, KingsBridge Train | Tags: amasa back, bruised ribs, business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, business impact analysis, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster preparation, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, moab, Phoenix software, portal
If you follow our FaceBook page you’ll know that everyone at KingsBridge is passionate about something. Some of us bike, some of us fish, but all of us love being outdoors (whenever the work is done)! A few weeks ago, I was in Moab Utah biking with some friends and had an incident, that luckily didn’t turn into a disaster (but it very nearly did) and it made me think about Disaster Recovery.
We planned the trip to Moab (my 4th) earlier this year and had 13 friends there to ride for a week. On the second day, while climbing out of a canyon, riding at less than 2mph I slipped and feel over. While it didn’t seem like much of an accident it did hurt like crazy. To make a long story short, I bruised my ribs and nearly lost the entire week of riding with friends.
How did make me think of Disaster Recovery? Keep reading…
In business, every day is a relative repeat of the day before. We carry on without many concerns about disasters; but they are never really far away. Having mountain biked for more than 20 years, I’ve fallen off my bike before, but never bruised ribs (or worse). So I had no reason to think this ride wouldn’t be a repeat of all my other rides. However, when I fell off my bike it all changed and this incident luckily remained an incident and didn’t grow into a disaster. The same goes for your business, every day the lights work, but one day (usually without warning) the lights don’t work. Without a plan, this incident becomes a disaster. With a current plan in place, your incident remains an incident. I was lucky to only bruise ribs, but it could have been much worse!
Make sure your business only bruises its ribs and not much worse!
Filed under: KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Knowledge | Tags: business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, business impact analysis, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster preparation, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Phoenix software, webinar, xmatters
Everyone is super busy, we can’t expect you to drop everything and give us an hour of your day. So we recorded our webinar for you to listen to whenever the thought moves you! You can listen to it a number of times in case you missed anything.
This hour long webinar featured Skip Williams of KingsBridge and Lance Stange of xMatters talking about how to think about the complete picture and plan for the result of the disaster rather than the actual incident itself. We even took it one step further and discussed how you can ensure your plans are brought to life with a communication system that matches your processes and delivers the right information to the right people at the right time.
Watch it now, watch it later or book mark it and watch it over and over again.
![xMatters Webinar Dont you wish you could be sure youve planned for everything [SaveYouTube.com]](http://i0.wp.com/videos.videopress.com/vvSNmVUA/xmatters-webinar-dont-you-wish-you-could-be-sure-youve-planned-for-everything-saveyoutube-com_dvd.original.jpg "Watch: xMatters Webinar Dont you wish you could be sure youve planned for everything [SaveYouTube.com]")
Filed under: KingsBridge Disaster Recovery | Tags: business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, business impact analysis, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster preparation, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Phoenix software
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| Don’t you wish you could be sure you’ve planned for everything? |
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| You plan and plan. And just when you think you have all of your plans set, you plan some more. It seems that planning for every scenario is never ending because in all honesty, there are millions of things that could happen that you have to plan for. But what if there was a way to simplify this? What if you changed the way you thought about scenarios and not only thought about what they are, but what the result would be if it actually happened?
Join this hour long webinar featuring Skip Williams of Kingsbridge and Lance Stange of xMatters to learn how to think about the complete picture and plan for the result of the disaster rather than the actual incident itself. We’ll even take it one step further and discuss how you can ensure your plans are brought to life with a communication system that matches your processes and delivers the right information to the right people at the right time. One lucky winner will receive a $50 American Express gift card just for attending this webinar…so you don’t want to miss it. |
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Filed under: KingsBridge Disaster Recovery | Tags: business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, business impact analysis, concordia, Continuity of Operations, COOP, costa, costa concordia, disaster preparation, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Phoenix software
In 2012, KingsBridge will be focusing on talking about the disruption side of Recovery planning. If you have spent any time in this field, or are new to it you’ve seen the millions of photos of hurricanes, earthquakes, fires and devastating floods. Not to make light of these incidents, but for the most part they aren’t likely to impact your business and as you have no doubt learned “If it isn’t likely, don’t plan for it!” or “Don’t worry, we’ve never had any trouble before so why bother to plan now?”. While both of these are valid excuses, realistically you should be planning for what will impact your business… Namely, “Disruptions” not “Disasters”. Let’s take at what I mean:
These top three issues cause nearly 50% of business disruptions: Power failure, IT Hardware failure and Network failure. Hurricanes, Tornados, Fires and Earthquake combined only account for 15%. – Forrester/Disaster Recovery Journal 2010 Global DR Survey
Power Failures, IT Failures aren’t nearly as catastrophic or sexy to surround your message with. As a result, they get overlooked for the more spectacular disasters. But realistically, how many power failures are you likely to have compared to Earthquakes? Plan for the incidents with the highest likelihood.
Still not going along with this train of thought? Let’s use a “disruption” that is in the news right now: the sinking of the Costa Concordia (off the coast of Italy). Most people would look at this and shrug their shoulders saying that these things happen. True, they do, but it comes as a $95 Million disruption to Carnival’s (parent company) revenue from that ship, the ship will be out of service for a year (if not longer) and Carnival is still paying the $580 Million it took the build the ship! The impact of this incident is being felt around the cruising industry and will likely cancel any chance of profits Carnival hoped to make this year. This doesn’t even touch the 14% share decrease that Carnival suffered this week and satisfy the 36% of booked customers who called with concerns. All told, the cost of this disruption will be almost impossible to calculate. All due to the captain of the ship taking it off course to “show off” to others on the boat.
While this does paint a bleak outlook for Carnival and the cruising industry, it will bounce back (eventually) and people will return to their ships just as they did when the Titanic sank 100 years ago.
Is the sinking of the Costa Concordia an Earthquake or a Fire? No. Outside of Carnival Cruise lines is it considered a Disaster (in the BCP/DRP sense)? No. In the grand scheme of Carnival and the cruising industry is it a disruption? YES! As it is more likely to occur (and have an impact on Carnival) than any fire, earthquake or drought.
How does this relate to your business?
Look at your business from a disruption perspective; snowstorms, power failures, computer failures, etc… These are things that happen every day and will never make the news, but will immediately impact your business. Recovery planning is all about limiting the impact to your business and your bottom line. So the next time you talk about Recovery Planning and just shrug it off with “it’ll never happen to me” thoughts, remember this article and make sure you aren’t going to go down with the ship!
RIP to those who died while a passenger or working on the Costa Concordia.
About KingsBridge
KingsBridge offers private businesses and government organizations a unique combination of industry knowledge and cost-effective disaster recovery / business continuity solutions. KingsBridge products and seminars provide the tools to assess possible threats and create tailored plans which mitigate risks and minimize losses in the event of a disruption to business. KingsBridge is headquartered in Ogdensburg, New York, with an office in Ottawa, Canada. For more information visit us at www.DisasterRecovery.com.
Filed under: KingsBridge Disaster Recovery | Tags: business continuity, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster, disaster preparation, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, disruption, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Phoenix software
Each year as winter gets closer our customers start to think about winter weather and how it will impact their business (if you are one of the lucky ones in the south, pray for a warm winter and no snow!). We are asked the same thing every year “How can we protect our business better?”. While this is a valid question, there are lots of other factors to take into account. First and foremost what is a disaster? Second, How does it differ from a disruption?
Every self respecting Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning website shows varying levels of Armageddon with large-scale fires, earthquakes, hurricanes and the like. While those threats are all reasonable ones to plan for, don’t get hung up on trying to plan for something that isn’t “likely” to impact your business. A 2010 Gartner/Disaster Recovery Journal survey shows that 7 other threats are more likely (Power Failure, IT Hardware Failure, Network Failure, Winter Storm, Human Error, Flood, IT Software Failure) to impact your business. Notice anything about most of these? None of them start as disasters, they start as disruptions!
So when you are doing your planning, why are you planning for something that has a 6% likelihood (Fire in the same survey), when you should be planning for something with a 44% likelihood (Power Failure)? It would seem that we are blinded by “the big one” and don’t notice the real threats to our business.
What the big deal with disruptions turning into disasters? Each disruption could have been stopped at that point with a proper Recovery Plan, unfortunately they weren’t prepared and the disruption ruined your business. Don’t let a coffee being spilt into your exchange server ruin your business, have a plan that stops your disruption at a disruption before it turns into a disaster!
About KingsBridge
KingsBridge offers private businesses and government organizations a unique combination of industry knowledge and cost-effective disaster recovery / business continuity solutions. KingsBridge products and seminars provide the tools to assess possible threats and create tailored plans which mitigate risks and minimize losses in the event of a disruption to business. Kingsbridge is headquartered in Ogdensburg, New York, with an office in Ottawa, Canada. For more information visit us at www.DisasterRecovery.com.
Filed under: KingsBridge Disaster Recovery | Tags: business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, business impact analysis, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, iPhone Application, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Phoenix Mobile, Phoenix Mobile iPhone App, Phoenix software
We’re seeing a unique disaster this year in both the U.S. and Canada. In both countries, there is unprecedented flooding from heavy winter snows and rains. In both cases, flood gates are being opened to flood some areas to protect other.
In Louisiana, Army engineers opened a spillway to allow the swollen Mississippi River to flood thousands of homes and fields but save New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
One of the 125 floodgates at the Morganza Spillway northwest of Baton Rouge was opened on Saturday which dumped water onto nearby fields. This is intended to save Louisiana’s two largest cities.
There are already 3 million acres of farmland flooded in Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas.
It is expected that 3,000 square miles of land could be inundated in up to 20 feet of water for several weeks and it will take up to three weeks for the water to pass through a system of levees and spillways to the Gulf of Mexico.
The irony is that there is a drought in the area and still, they won’t be able to benefit from the flood waters.
If they didn’t open the spillway, then New Orleans would be at risk of flooding worse than seen during Hurricane Katrina, when 80 percent of the city was flooded and 1,500 people died.
In Canada, they are having similar difficulties in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Quebec. They have opened a dike in Manitoba to divert water from swollen rivers unto farms and towns. They have filled tens of thousands of sandbags to minimize damage to homes in the path of the water. The idea is to sacrifice some homes to save many more. In Quebec, the Richelieu River has flooded scores of homes as well.
So what does all of this mean in the continuity business ? Well, government officials in all of these cases have been faced with difficult decisions to choose between homes, farms, businesses, power plants, oil refineries in some areas and those in more populous areas. Even with the best of intentions, some are going to lose.
The variety of disasters that can affect your business continue to increase. You must continue to re-visit your plans to ensure that they remain current and that your team members are still trained to the new standards.
About KingsBridge
KingsBridge offers private businesses and government organizations a unique combination of industry knowledge and cost-effective disaster recovery / business continuity solutions. KingsBridge products and seminars provide the tools to assess possible threats and create tailored plans which mitigate risks and minimize losses in the event of a disruption to business. Kingsbridge is headquartered in Ogdensburg, New York, with offices in Ottawa, Canada and Burlington, Vermont. For more information visit us at www.DisasterRecovery.com.
Filed under: KingsBridge Disaster Recovery | Tags: business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, business impact analysis, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, iPhone Application, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Phoenix Mobile, Phoenix Mobile iPhone App, Phoenix software
A client of ours has fallen on some hard times, due to the economy. We have been working with this client for a number of years and we continue to maintain their response and recovery plans. However, the current world and national economies have hit this client hard, to the tune of many tens of millions of dollars lost. This is not an isolated story. There are many companies who are facing the same difficulties.
There have been many layoffs and the same is true for this client. This means that the teams in their response and recovery plans have also been disseminated; more than half of the team members are now gone.
So, we decided to do what we do best. We decided to help.
We have offered to help by either maintaining their plans from our offices, at no cost to them, for the balance of this year or on their premises for travel and living costs only. Either of these saves them the cost of our people.
Why are we doing this ? We believe that, in tough times, we have to help each other. They helped us get to where we are and we think that they could use our help now.
Maybe other companies, in the service businesses, could consider doing the same. If we all help each other, just a little bit, it could make a large difference overall.
About KingsBridge
KingsBridge offers private businesses and government organizations a unique combination of industry knowledge and cost-effective disaster recovery / business continuity solutions. KingsBridge products and seminars provide the tools to assess possible threats and create tailored plans which mitigate risks and minimize losses in the event of a disruption to business. Kingsbridge is headquartered in Ogdensburg, New York, with offices in Ottawa, Canada and Burlington, Vermont. For more information visit us at www.DisasterRecovery.com.
Filed under: KingsBridge Disaster Recovery | Tags: business, business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, business impact analysis, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, iPhone Application, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Phoenix Mobile, Phoenix Mobile Enterprise, Phoenix Mobile iPhone App, Phoenix software, threat risk analysis
There was a survey (http://is.gd/R3KQkQ )taken a few months ago by CDW of businesses in the U.S., who had experienced major disruptions in their networks during the previous year.
Officials of CDW said that “through more preparation, testing and improved network accessibility, business can improve” disaster management and business recovery plans and “have real confidence in business operations during unplanned disruptions.”
There were some interesting things that came from that survey. Most of the businesses believed that spending some money on IT would enable them to weather disruptions while being able to support regular operations. But almost all of the businesses surveyed did admit that disruptions in networks had a very big effect on their business in the previous year.
CDW said that the survey was a confirmation that as businesses had the belief they were well prepared for any unplanned disruption in their network, a good number of them were not.
I would suggest that the results of this should make you look inward and review your own preparedness. Virtually all of these businesses were not prepared and not aware of their shortcomings. Don’t be caught out the same way. Get your business continuity plans in order. They need to be audited.
About KingsBridge
KingsBridge offers private businesses and government organizations a unique combination of industry knowledge and cost-effective disaster recovery / business continuity solutions. KingsBridge products and seminars provide the tools to assess possible threats and create tailored plans which mitigate risks and minimize losses in the event of a disruption to business. Kingsbridge is headquartered in Ogdensburg, New York, with offices in Ottawa, Canada and Burlington, Vermont. For more information visit us at www.DisasterRecovery.com.
Filed under: KingsBridge Disaster Recovery | Tags: business, business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, business impact analysis, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, iPhone Application, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Phoenix Mobile, Phoenix Mobile iPhone App, Phoenix software
We know this to be true, that everyone (every company, hospital, school, airport, etc.) should have a plan if they are serious about staying in business. And the reasons for having a plan are numerous:
- succession planning
- the ability to stay in business
- the vast majority of business that suffer a major hit, and don’t have plan, go bankrupt
- training your staff to think about their jobs and how to do them better in order to protect their jobs after an incident
- to prioritize critical services or products
- to identify impacts of disruptions
- to identify areas of potential revenue loss
- to identify additional expenses
- to determine insurance requirements
. . . . and the list goes on.
In short, the reason you need a plan is to be able to stay in business when something bad happen, hence the term “business continuity”
We can now see that a plan is important. So why doesn’t every organization have a plan in place, as the first order of business. It really is important.
Well the reasons (excuses) are many but some of them are:
- lack of funds
- This isn’t a very good reason as the cost of continuity planning can be offset by the risk insurance premium savings (if you need an explanation on this one, call us (888 246-6642) and we’ll explain it)
- lack of management commitment
- This one should be called a lack of management understanding of the criticality of this planning/insurance. If you can’t carry on the business, then you’re no longer in business.
- lack of time to do a plan
- There’s lots of software, courses, seminars, consultants, associations where you can solve this problem.
- we don’t know how to do it
- see the above answer for this one
The statistics are brutal:
- over 50% of companies do not have plans in place and many of the ones that do have plans don’t maintain their plans. Testing of the plan and training of the personnel should be ongoing aspects of any plan.
- some companies without plans never get to open their doors again. The devastation is so large and, without plans, they don’t know where to begin.
- when companies are unable to service their clients, the lost revenue can run from tens of thousands of dollars up to millions. And the cost side of your profit equation continue on.
- when companies fail, jobs are lost. Work to protect your job now.
About KingsBridge
KingsBridge offers private businesses and government organizations a unique combination of industry knowledge and cost-effective disaster recovery / business continuity solutions. KingsBridge products and seminars provide the tools to assess possible threats and create tailored plans which mitigate risks and minimize losses in the event of a disruption to business. Kingsbridge is headquartered in Ogdensburg, New York, with offices in Ottawa, Canada and Burlington, Vermont. For more information visit us at www.DisasterRecovery.com.
Filed under: KingsBridge Disaster Recovery | Tags: business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, business impact analysis, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster preparation, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, iPhone Application, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Phoenix Mobile, Phoenix Mobile Enterprise, Phoenix Mobile iPhone App, Phoenix software, sharepoint, threat risk analysis
Well, we are now on our way to one of the biggest annual conferences in our industry, the bi-annual conference on business continuity and disaster recovery by the Disaster Recovery Journal. Starting this weekend, the conference will unfold, as it has for many years, at Disney’s Coronado Springs Hotel in Orlando, Florida. Seminars lead off on Saturday morning through Sunday noon. The trade show begins at 6pm on Sunday through Tuesday afternoon. And papers are being given in several streams Monday through Wednesday.
Our Booth
As always, Kingsbridge will have a booth (#518) this year so that we can meet with our clients and visitors to discuss what is new from our company. We have software solutions for developing and managing business continuity and disaster recovery plans that are:
a) standalone on your site,
b) online to be accessible from anywhere, and
c) remotely available from your iPhone (see this one on the Apple AppStore at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/phoenix-enterprise/id396903548?mt=8 )
We love our topic and we welcome the chance to discuss it with you. If you can’t make it to our booth, call us in the booth at 888-246-6642 and we’ll give you a live report from the show floor!.
See more information on this conference atwww.drj.com
About KingsBridge
KingsBridge offers private businesses and government organizations a unique combination of industry knowledge and cost-effective disaster recovery / business continuity solutions. KingsBridge products and seminars provide the tools to assess possible threats and create tailored plans which mitigate risks and minimize losses in the event of a disruption to business. Kingsbridge is headquartered in Ogdensburg, New York, with offices in Ottawa, Canada and Burlington, Vermont. For more information visit us at www.DisasterRecovery.com.
