Achieving resilience – best practices in business continuity

A white paper that summarises the results of a $250,000 research program into business continuity planning.

In 2002, AT&T instituted a long-term program designed to identify best practices in business continuity planning. As a part of this program, the AT&T Foundation made a series of educational research grants totalling $250,000 to five US-based universities. Their objective was to identify a more formalised approach to business continuity planning that would help organisations identify and quantify risks and then implement procedures, strategies and tactics aimed at ensuring business continuity.

Each of the five universities focused on one of five vertical industries:
• Financial services: George Mason University, Virginia
• Manufacturing and supply chain environments: Michigan State University
• Pharmaceutical industry: Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey
• Retail industry: University of California, Los Angeles
• Travel and leisure: Georgia Institute of Technology

Utilising detailed case studies and surveys, each of the five papers explores areas such as strategic planning, risk assessment, back-up plans and work processes, continuous testing and industry-specific best practices. The research papers also provide several proposed frameworks for developing business continuity plans and questionnaires for self-assessment.

This white paper, written by AT&T in co-operation with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), summarises the key findings of the research. Three main themes emerged:

• The news media headlines may focus on single catastrophic events, but smaller, more mundane risks are responsible for more business disruptions. As a result, companies are shifting their focus from disaster recovery – the restoration of damaged assets – to business continuity planning – the uninterrupted provision of operations and services to end-user customers.

• Information technology dominates thinking on business continuity, and industries that are heavily dependent on IT tend to be furthest along the business continuity planning path. But IT should not push aside other elements of business continuity planning, such as communications with employees, alternative work processes and interaction with customers.
• A static business continuity plan will not protect a company from disruption. An integrated and ongoing enterprise-wide plan, with assumptions that are regularly tested and that keep pace with the risks prevalent in the business environment, is needed to achieve this goal.

Click here to read the complete white paper (PDF)

•Date: 20th August 2004 •Region: N.America/World •Type: Article •Topic: BC general
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