My, How Time Flies
By ED DEVLIN, CBCP
It’s hard to believe that 20 years ago, I wrote my first column for the Disaster Recovery Journal. You may wonder how I ended up writing the column for the DRJ magazine. Let me explain. When I decided 20 years in the disaster recovery/business continuity industry was
enough, I informed SunGard Planning Solutions I was ready to
retire. (Devlin Associates Inc., which was started in 1973, was
acquired by SunGard in 1987). SunGard decided it would be fun
to “roast” me before I officially retired. They invited all of the
attendees at their May 1992 conference to attend dinner and the
roast.
The “roasters” were prominent figures from the computer
security/disaster recovery/business resumption planning arena.
Rich Arnold was one of the prominent figures asked to participate and he seemed very happy to roast me. The following morning, he approached me with the idea of writing a column for the
Disaster Recovery Journal, since I wasn’t going to be doing anything except golf. I figured he meant writing the column for a year
or two, so I agreed.
Well here it is, 20 years later. And I’m retiring again. (I’m sure
many of you are saying, “Finally.”)
When I was thinking about the subject for my final column, I
thought I would write about the major “supply chain disruptions”
of 2011 – one caused by the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster in Japan (April) and then a second by the floods in Thailand
(August).
As I began accumulating information for the two disasters, I
decided to look through a book where I keep all of my prior DRJ
columns. (Yes, I have all 20 years of my columns.)
I noticed my initial column for DRJ (Fall 1992) centered
on Hurricane Andrew. That column reminded me there were
a number of vendors/suppliers affected by Andrew in 1992.
When I turned the next page, I realized one of my columns
dealt with a disaster at an “outsourcer.” (Roof collapse of a
computer center serving banks in a March blizzard in 1993.)
I found it ironic that 19-20 years ago, we realized in addition
to recovering from a disaster to our organization, we needed
a contingency in the event suppliers were unable to service/
supply us.
As I looked further through the book, I thought the subjects we concerned ourselves with then, are similar to those
that concern us today. The depth may be different, the breadth
may be different, and the terminology is definitely different,
but the articles still revolve around one major need ... to be
prepared.
Early on, my columns focused on being prepared to resume
business operations after a disaster. My more recent columns
have keyed in on being prepared to resume business operations
after a crisis has struck an organization. I believe that business
continuity professionals should be just as involved in preparing
the company/organization to bounce back from a crisis, as they
are to resume operations after a disaster.
The effects of a crisis on a company’s business operation can
be mind boggling. Look at the damage to the reputations of Penn
State, Syracuse, and senior officials at both universities. Those
crises came “out of the blue.” It seems that most crises occur as
a surprise.
Some other examples of organizations forced to quickly
manage a crisis in 2011 were:
n Bank of America – botched technology upgrade
n Research in Motion – interruption to BlackBerry service
n Citigroup – cyber attack exposing 360,000 user accounts
n Epsilon – theft of millions of individuals confidential info
n Sony – Playstation’s intrusion exposing information of 77 million
accounts
n JPMorgan Chase – errors in processing foreclosure paperwork
n Netflix – the negative reception to separate subscription plans
resulting in cancellations
n Synthes Inc. – a company’s executives sentenced to jail – illegal
use of bone cement
n Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich – an executive is charged with
criminal insider trading
Conclusion
It has been a great run for me. In my 40 years in the BC/DR
industry, I was fortunate to have met many interesting people -- at
my seminars, at our conferences, and during my consulting projects. I’ve travelled around the world, met BCP professionals from
other countries and found they have the same enthusiasm, as you
all have. I have acquired a great number of friends during those
years.
Confucius said, “Choose a job you love and you will never
have to work a day in your life.”
That’s the way I feel about my career in our industry.
Although I will be retired, if any of you feel you need to talk
with me about business continuity planning, you can always contact me at esjdevlin@aol.com.
v
Ed Devlin, CBCP, has provided business recovery planning consulting services since
1973 when he co-founded Devlin Associates. Since then, Devlin has assisted more than
300 companies in the writing of their business recovery plans and has made more than 800
seminars and presentations worldwide.
