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Prevent data going on strike

The recent spate of public unrest across South Africa – such as the public protests in Sasolburg and farmworkers strikes in the Western Cape – has resulted in significant damage to a number of business premises. While appropriate insurance should cover any damage, businesses that failed to backup their information could face possible closure if no effective backup solutions were implemented.

Ray Stride

This is according to Ray Stride, MD of Global Continuity South Africa, who says that public unrest is one of the newer and rapidly growing threats to business continuity. “Ensuring that mission-critical company data is backed up is a key component of an effective business continuity management (BCM) programme and should be a top priority for business leaders in the current environment.”

Stride says the main function of a sound BCM plan is to enable a business to avoid disasters or survive and continue functioning at a sustainable level following a major disruption to critical daily operations. “This is done through the identification of certain business processes that must be recovered within a certain time frame in order to continue supplying critical products and services during adverse operating conditions or alternatively to ensure that business processes are not interrupted by disastrous events.

“The repercussions for businesses with no effective BCM solution can range from loss of revenue, assets, clients and staff to litigation, penalties and perhaps even worst of all, reputational damage. There are also personal consequences for the business leaders as they could face director or officer liability cases on the basis of negligence or criminal liability, which could even affect their reputation to act as a director in future.”

Stride says some examples of essential services and activities, which are critical to the sustainability of a business, include, but are not limited to: revenue collection; communication with staff, suppliers and clients; service delivery; logistics and procurement.

“Unfortunately, no insurance policy is able to keep a business running – it can pay for damages caused, but it cannot answer the phones, communicate with clients or satisfy stakeholders when a major unforeseen interruption renders the business incapable of continuing mission-critical activities.”

However, the importance of testing the BCM programme cannot be stressed enough as a recovery plan is only effective if it is certain to work, says Stride.

For more information, visit www.globalcontinuity.co.za

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