Business Continuity in the Current Economy

Regardless of the state of the economy, it's critical to make sure your continuity planning doesn't fall by the wayside. You can't afford to think that bad things don't happen in bad times… they do. This week's articles, therefore, look at protecting your organization despite the economy.

IT projects may be on hold, but your infrastructure must be protected now. (Item #1)   Reducing costs also may increase your risk; keep your plan ready to deal with the worst case. (Item #2)   You need to do everything possible to ensure funds for recovery are available.
(Item #3)  

Maybe, instead of eliminating BC planning, you can take a modular approach. (Item #4)   People in the field share their insights about keeping your plans alive in a recession.
(Item #5)   Is the down economy actually encouraging management to get more involved in BC planning? (Item #6)  

As always, we look forward to hearing your comments & insights regarding business continuity. If you have a topic you'd like us to cover, email me at [email protected].

Bob Mellinger, President
Attainium Corp

1. Business Continuity Planning Won't Wait for a Good Economy

Your enterprise relies on the continuous availability of business-critical applications, servers and data. A major interruption could have dire short and long-term consequences for your business. Disaster recovery and business continuity planning are on your to-do list, but a weak economy has put IT projects on indefinite hold. Failure, however, is not an option in any economy. Your information infrastructure must be protected now.
http://www.steeleye.com/downloads/Collaterals/White%20Papers/WP-Business%20Continuity%20Planning.pdf

2. Preparing For the Worst

While the global downturn may prompt some companies to avoid these plans in order to save cash, which is just when they need the plans the most, experts say. "Companies are lean and mean today. They're operating on the edge," says Pinzari, referring to multinationals' increased use of single suppliers or reliance on a single distribution center amid reduced staffing levels. "In tough economic times companies look every way to reduce costs. But that also increases your risks," he adds.
http://www.gfmag.com/archives/105-october-2009/2439-features-preparing-for-the-worst.html#ixzz1AeiiqEZp

3. Disaster Planning in a Down Economy

Risk managers and emergency planners know that natural disasters and other threats don't wait for the opportune time to strike. In today's economic climate, shrinking budgets are the norm, and securing funding for things like emergency preparedness can be difficult.
http://ohsonline.com/articles/2009/07/01/disaster-planning-in-a-down-economy.aspx

4. Business Continuity Planning In Difficult Economic Times

In these challenging economic times, many companies are choosing to postpone or eliminate business continuity planning from their budgets, even though they may have no plan at all in place. This being the case, security professionals may want to try a more modular approach to safeguarding the company's assets.
http://www.sans.org/reading_room/whitepapers/recovery/business-continuity-planning-difficult-economic-times_1114

5. Special Report: Surviving the Recession

How do you keep your plans alive and thriving in the tightest global economy we've seen in decades? We bring you answers from the field. Everyone has felt the effects of the economic downturn, and the business continuity industry is no exception. To explore the related issues Continuity Insights spoke with Carolyn DeWitt of Dialogic Communications Corporation (DCC), Ramesh Warrier of eBRP Solutions, and Troy Winskowicz of Dell ProManage-Modular Services.
http://www.continuityinsights.com/articles/special-report-surviving-the-recession

6. Down Economy is Prompting Upper Management to get more Involved with Disaster Recovery

Executives in North America increased their participation on DR committees by almost 50% in the last year (67% in 2009 versus 46% a year ago) while globally executives more than doubled their participation on these DR committees from 33% in 2008 to 70% in 2009. While the study did not cite any exact reasons why executive participation increased so dramatically in 2009, I suspect the down economy that all enterprise companies are working their way through right now probably had as much to do with increased executive involvement as anything.
http://symantec.dciginc.com/2009/07/down-economy-is-prompting-uppe.html