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Boosting business resilience through the Olympics and beyond As has been widely documented, the 2012 Olympic Games will focus the world’s attention on the UK and present firms with numerous challenges that must be overcome if they are to continue business as usual. Even for businesses outside London, the ripple effect is likely to be felt across the UK with organizations potentially affected by transport disruption, infrastructure strains, skeleton staffing, interrupted supply chains, denial of access, protests and even the threat of terrorist attacks. However, investments made to counter Games-related disruption now also present a golden opportunity to mitigate future threats and make organizations more robust. A new white paper written by SunGard Availability Services explores how businesses that use the Olympics as a catalyst to improve their resilience, not only for the duration of the Games but into the long-term, will come out winning. The paper summarises the results of recent surveys commissioned by SunGard which looked at how prepared UK organizations are for London 2012. It also highlights the themes that have emerged from the business continuity and resiliency plans that have been made. Various long term benefits of these plans have been identified by SunGard, including:
Firms that treat the Games as an opportunity to look at how they can do things differently will reap the benefits of streamlined business processes and the technology investments made in the longer term. Many organizations have now completed Olympics plans but for those that haven’t the message of the white paper is that ‘it’s still not too late’; and a ten step checklist of recommended actions will help kick start the planning process. If nothing else, they should seek to ensure that their recovery provisions reflect any changes made since the last time they tested their plans. Organizations that fail to heed the calls to plan will have no excuses. The fallout from disruption caused or exacerbated by poor or no preparation stands to affect not just operations, but customers, profits and reputation too. Of course, if we all sail through the Olympics period, there may be those that say it was a lot of fuss over nothing. But a little over ten years ago, such a charge was levied in the wake Y2K, demonstrating that those businesses who see this as a golden opportunity to implement measures to improve their resilience will not just benefit for two months in 2012 but will be well served for years to come. One thing is certain: having had eight years to prepare, should any organization fail to do so and subsequently let customers down, they many well discover that goodwill is very thin on the ground indeed. •Date: 6th July 2012 • UK •Type: Article • Topic: London 2012 business continuity
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