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* Kelli Ribeiro

Every day organizations are under great pressure to have a guarantee of business continuity and ever shorter recovery times, since many businesses are online and must maintain 24-hour operation on seven days a week.

The business processes are highly dependent on Information Technology, under this scenario it is necessary for the organization to have an IT Disaster Recovery Plan that provides strategies to ensure that essential services are identified and thus to ensure their preservation following a disaster. until the return to a normal operating situation of the organization.

Business Continuity Management is a comprehensive process that identifies potential threats to an organization and potential impacts on business operations should the threats materialize.

Relevant questions:

Managers in your organization should be prepared to answer the following questions:

  • How long can your organization survive without its facilities, people and systems?
  • What are the actions to take to keep your organization running in the event of a disaster?
  • How much does the impact of a week of disruption have on your organization?
  • What activities should the organization take up first if there is a disaster?
  • What are the main suppliers of your company? What are the plans if they go on strike or fail to deliver the contracted service?

Motivation to implement GCN

  • Protect the physical safety of people;
  • Comply with regulations and legislation, thereby gaining greater market confidence and generating a competitive differential;
  • Catastrophic financial loss prevention;
  • Negotiate the insurance premium reduction;

Maintain the availability of the environment and ensure business continuity in adverse situations.

Supply Chain Interruptions

The stoppage of cargo transport activity in 2018, organized due to the diesel price adjustment, affected business continuity and had an estimated impact of R $ 75 billion. However, the transport stoppage is not a scenario that exists only in our country.

According to the Resilience Report in the Supply chain 2019 Business Continuity Institute (BCI), presents the shutdown of transportation activities as the 6th leading cause of Supply chain, preceded by the following related questions:

  • 61.7% & #8211; Cyber attacks and information leakage;
  • 9% & #8211; Unplanned IT or Telecom outages.
  • 43,7% & #8211; Political or economic changes;
  • 43,2% & #8211; Adverse Climate;
  • 40.1% & #8211; New laws or regulations.

Initial withdrawals:

The following initial activities are required to develop a Business Continuity Management plan:

  • Identify the key products and services of the organization;
  • Identify the prioritized activities and resources required for recovery;
  • Assess the threats of activities and their dependencies;
  • Develop plans to return to activities after an incident;
  • Test the plans to ensure that they are effective under all circumstances.

Conclusion

The continuity management process helps to create a clear understanding of the organization's key operations, as well as measuring acceptable times to keep critical functions running during a crisis and recover with the shortest possible downtime.

The development of business continuity plans should consider various unpredictable events such as natural disasters, fires, disease outbreaks, cyber attacks and other external threats.

It is normal for many organizations to assign the IT Continuity Plan to the IT area, but it should be noted that in the event of a disruption, not only will IT systems be affected, but processes throughout the organization.

* Kelli Ribeiro is Information Security Specialist at SAFEWAY

 

Regarding the [SAFEWAY]

SAFEWAY is an Information Security company, recognized by its customers for offering high value added solutions through Information Security projects that fully meet business needs. During these years of experience, we have proudly accumulated several successful projects that have earned us credibility and prominence in our clients, which constitute in large part the 100 largest companies in Brazil.

Today through more than 17 strategic partnerships with global manufacturers and our SOC, SAFEWAY is considered a one stop shopping with the best technology solutions, processes and people.

Let's make the world a safer place to live and do business!