November 12, 2001—OnlinEnvironments (a division of the Syska & Hennessy Group), has developed six essential questions to ensure that sensitive data and customer connections are protected during an emergency. According to OnlinEnvironments, preparedness lies not just in securing a remote site, but in knowing precisely the people, infrastructure and systems necessary to restore critical functions.
The CEO Essential 6:
- Have you rated each facility within your organization by how critical it is to supporting business operations?
- Within each facility or data center, have you identified the components that are most essential to operations?
- What is the threshold for the hours or days that these different operations can be down before essential services must be moved to a new site? Typically, customer call centers need to be back online immediately. In contrast, an internal function such as accounting may be offline longer without a significant impact on operations.
- Are documented plans and processes in place to transition from the damaged facility to the new site? If personnel cannot easily transfer to the remote location, skilled labor should be available nearby to get business back on track.
- Have time limits been set for recreating essential support services? A trader may have phone lines, but he can’t operate without access to market data or customer accounts, for example.
- Are regular drills performed to keep the staff prepared for any disaster? The current disaster plan should be tested to see how it would have held up under conditions similar to the tragic events of September 11, 2001.
For more information, contact OnlinEnvironments.
