Current scenario
In recent years, in the face of major terrorist attacks, epidemics and natural disasters, exposure to the risk of business disruption in organizations, whether public or private, has increased.
Managers in turn must ensure the resilience of their processes and respond quickly to external and / or internal changes, even when chaotic and unforeseen.
A recent case is the water and electric crisis. In Brazil, more than 90% of the energy is produced by hydroelectric plants, which rely on adequate levels of water in reservoirs to generate energy. The absence of rainfall in recent years has hampered power generation, as well as failures in planning execution, has impacted energy supply.
Faced with possible power rationing, or even power outages (the so-called blackout), some organizations are already considering adopting alternative times so as not to depend on the system at peak times, or have alternative sources, for example, diesel generators for these occasions.
In the city of São Paulo, even with the prediction of possible scarcity scenarios, none of the São Paulo watersheds has a contingency plan for critical events, such as the one presented by the Cantareira System.
The worsening of the water crisis and the possibility of the country facing again an energy rationing is a risk for companies and industries of various sectors.
A good contingency plan would provide for the supply of water by alternative reservoirs, in works and connection carried out with proper planning.
Thus, should the worst rationing scenario materialize, ie 5 & #215; 2, where there will be 5 days without supply and only 2 days with, there are already companies planning collective vacations, reducing work shifts and adopting home office policies. , all to get around the crisis.
Organizations should recognize exposure to the risk of disruption by asking below and whether they are prepared to cope with water or energy rationing.
- What are the core businesses of my organization?
- What are the operational risk factors that may affect the business of the organization?
- What would be the impact on revenues generated by the organization's business if one or more risk factors materialized?
- How is the organization prepared to deal with the inevitable or a threat?
For questions not answered or answered unsatisfactorily, the vulnerability of the organization increases.
Strategies and Benefits
To ensure the Business Continuity it is necessary to use the methodology 2340
It is an integrated management approach that aims to understand, prepare and organize companies to gain better insight into processes and ensure minimal disruption of workflow in the event of incidents.
The benefits of a well-structured program include:
Safeguard your business and demonstrate that your organization is able to respond accurately and effectively to incidents;
Provide competitive advantage;
Minimize financial, operational and image losses due to adverse situations;
Understand the criticality of the processes and identify the recovery objectives for the resources that support the business in order to focus efforts intelligently and effectively.
Identify the vulnerabilities and risks that the organization is exposed to and mitigate them appropriately;
Minimize unnecessary costs with unplanned efforts and investments;
Potentially reduce insurance costs by demonstrating that risks are managed effectively;
Help ensure the safety of employees, customers and partners in your facilities.
Methodology
The program of Continuity Management it must be appropriate and reflect the reality of each organization.
For the success of this program it is important to understand the organization and plan continuity through the following activities:
After implementing all phases of the process of Continuity Management The organization must continually improve the adequacy and effectiveness of the plans and the search for identification of new risks.
Conclusion
Continuity management is a differentiator in an era marked by rapid and continuous changes in corporate environments surrounded by threats and uncertainties. This methodology can prevent incidents from turning into a major crisis by mitigating their effects to recover the organization's core operations.
The operation of BCM It depends on numerous commitments, not just creating it, but training and raising awareness to respond to various emergencies.
* Kelli Ribeiro, Information Security Consultant at [SAFEWAY]
Also on the Theme:
BSI, our strategic partner, jointly published with BCI the 2015 Annual Horizon Scan Report which assessed the readiness of 760 organizations worldwide and showed that 82% of business continuity managers fear the possibility of a cyber attack, 81% are concerned about the possibility of unplanned IT and 75% outages concerned about the leakage of information similar to that suffered by Sony in 2014. The report outlines the threats to business continuity and recommendations to organizations.
Want to know the full report for analysis? Click here: BCI_Horizon_Scan_Report 2015
