Dejan Kosutic You are thinking about implementing the business continuity management/BS 25999-2 standard? But then you hear it will cost you a lot? It probably will cost you, but not necessarily as much as you thought – this you can solve with good business continuity strategy.
Business continuity strategy, as defined in BS 25999-2 standard, is an “approach by an organization that will ensure its recovery and continuity in the face of a disaster or other major incident or business disruption”. Therefore, the point is to prepare yourself in the best possible manner to counteract a disaster if such would occur. This preparation can include organizational measures (drawing up plans, making contracts with suppliers/partners, exercising, reviewing, awareness raising, etc.), and measures including investment in equipment, infrastructure etc.
Time is a very important factor in recovery – if you do not recover your business in time, you will probably lose your customers and consequently lose your business as well. So the business continuity strategy must set the recovery time objective (RTO) for each of your critical activities, whereas RTO can be different for each of those.
One important consideration: the shorter the RTO, the bigger the investment you will need – for instance, if you want to recover your data centre in less than one hour, you will have to invest in an alternative location almost the same equipment as in the primary location; on the other hand, if you want to recover your data centre in two weeks, the investment will be much lower because it would be enough to store the backup tapes at the alternative location, allowing you two weeks to obtain the necessary equipment. All this means that your RTO must not be too long, but not too short either.
Once the RTO is set, you will still need to make some investment; however, with a good business continuity strategy you will be able to decrease that investment, while still being able to recover your critical activities within the recovery time objective. Here are some examples:
- you might not need your own data centre at an alternative location – in most countries you can rent such a location from a specialized company, which means you don’t need to invest in infrastructure, maybe not even in equipment or software,
- you might not need offices at an alternative location – employees who do not have to meet customers face-to-face can work from their homes,
- you might not need an alternative location at all if you have other business units at different locations which could take over the critical activities affected by the disaster,
- you might not need to purchase equipment in advance if you can find the supplier that could guarantee the delivery of equipment within your RTO,
- etc.
In all these examples you will need to increase your organizational capabilities, but if you want to save some money, it sure is something worth thinking about.
This free webinar will also help you: Developing the business continuity strategy according to ISO 22301.
