and your risks only slightly better mitigated after all of your
efforts. So your strategies need to also focus on sustainability of
your solution from a people, process, and technology perspective, and most importantly, from an organizational perspective.
Developing the cultural commitment; ensuring there is ongoing
training, awareness and communications; maintaining the sense
of urgency and continually challenging the organization to get
better are as important to your solution as the data protection and
systems recovery strategies you develop. So when you “cut” the
solution don’t forget about the long term components that need
to be addressed since “measuring” and addressing those needs is
critical to the long term viability and value of your capabilities.
Before implementing a business continuity solution, you need
to develop a solid foundation of understanding as to what your
critical risks are, what the impacts of a business disruption are,
and how time-critical it is to recover business operations and the
underlying people, processes and technologies. Strategies must
be developed that align with these risks and priorities, take into
account your enterprise, and leverage the full arsenal you can
bring to bear: people, process, and technologies, as well as partners and suppliers. And the solutions implemented need to focus
not only on the first 20 percent of the work – the implementation
– but also the 80 percent of the effort required in honing the skills
and capabilities and sustaining a viable solution that continues to
deliver the value tomorrow that it was implemented to provide
today.
It will never be simple or easy to ensure uninterrupted access
to your mission-critical data and systems. However, with a struc-
30 DISASTER RECOVERY JOURNAL FALL 2009
tured approach you can efficiently get to an effective solution.
Invest the time and effort in upfront analysis and strategizing, and
you will develop an optimal strategy and program that meets your
business continuity requirements—during day-to-day operations,
planned interruptions or unplanned events. “Measuring twice and
cutting once” is the best protection to ensure that a focused, effective and sustainable program is implemented that will bring long
term value to the organization.
Your Next Steps
Approach your BC Program as a long term commitment by
setting long term objectives and keeping the broad scope of the
program in mind throughout all phases of development. Begin
with a risk assessment that focuses your organization’s efforts.
Follow through by developing strategies that align to those threats
and that leverage every asset at your disposal. Finally, focus on
your long term commitment to bringing the solution to its peak of
effectiveness and keeping it there. By following these steps, and
keeping the adage about “measuring twice and cutting once,” you
can implement a more effective solution without wasting previous resources, either on the implementation or long term.
v
Bill Hughes is responsible for overseeing the product development,
assessment and evolution of consulting services for SunGard’s Business
Continuity/Disaster Recovery Center of Excellence. Throughout his career
at SunGard, Hughes has been a key contributor and advisor on a number
of strategic engagements, change agent for delivery and deliverable evolution and is involved in the development of strategic capabilities and services. Previously,
Hughes served as the regional director of consulting services for SunGard in the Midwest.
With more than 23 years of IT engineering and operations, program and project management and business continuity and disaster recovery experience, Hughes’ background
provides a strong foundation of expertise with best practices for business and information availability and information technology services. Hughes holds a bachelor’s degree
in applied physics from McMaster University in Ontario, Canada and is a member of the
Project Management Institute and Association of Contingency Planners.
