Building Business Resilience: Using Technology to Empower Business Continuity

CIO surveys consistently put business continuity at the top of the corporate agenda. The ability to safeguard the continued operation of business activities, no matter what fate may bring, is about much more than protecting the bottom line. Business interruption can impact productivity or sales – but it can also have a significant impact on the corporate brand, or potentially infringe corporate responsibility or regulatory requirements. Fundamentally all businesses need to plan for a crisis in advance, but which processes should be followed and how can technology really help?

The emergence of the truly multinational corporation has changed the face of the business environment. As companies expand internationally in order to take advantage of new markets and become more competitive, they must also maintain contact with local customers in local time zones, requiring them to be operational 24x7.

Cloud-and network-based services can be utilized for redundancy to support critical operations. This combination of diverse network routing and the ability to duplicate mission-critical applications is essential to communications and the continuity of critical business operations. Cloud- and network-based services enable access to important information, the rapid restoration of service and the ability to quickly switch services to alternative sites.

Some business and IT leaders remain hesitant about stepping off the parapet and into the cloud. The usual concerns cited are security, availability, and control. And it's true that an effective cloud computing strategy must incorporate these factors, if it is to drive business success.

For d'Amico Società di Navigazione, business continuity was critical when the Italian global shipping company reviewed its communications requirements a few months ago. A Verizon customer since 2005, d'Amico already was using Verizon's secure and scalable global IP network to support its global communications. However, as news stories continued to highlight disasters – both natural and man-made – the company decided to rethink its business continuity plan to ensure its operations could continue to function, should the worst happen. d'Amico's business continuity strategy is now based on Verizon Terremark's enterprise cloud, which can be accessed by the company whenever the need arises. In addition, co-location services in Verizon's Dublin data center offer reliable access to business-critical applications.

Pietro Amorusi, d'Amico's chief information officer comments: "Technology is continuing to change the way we do business and in particular, how we are able to interact with our employees and customers. Verizon's technology solutions have already strengthened our global communications capabilities; now by expanding our network into the cloud, we are able to use technology on demand, to ensure we can continue to serve our customers."

"The move to the cloud can seem scary, but by working with a trusted partner such as Verizon, which shares the drive for professional excellence that has enabled us to become a leader in our industry, we know we are well equipped for the journey ahead," Amorusi said.
(Full press release can be accessed here).

Business continuity planning is a critical activity, not only in terms of mitigating risk but also in terms of building business resilience into business processes. In this sense it is about much more than disaster recovery. It is about understanding what business processes are most fundamental to the continued operation of any organization and ensuring safeguards are in place to maintain continuous operation of those processes. By adopting a lifecycle approach to business continuity management, enterprises should be able to maintain operational resiliency as their environment changes. Some simple guidelines are as follows:

1. Plan in advance.
2. Assess your risk.
3. Create a strong partner ecosystem.
4. Protect critical networks, systems and applications.
5. Deploy networks engineered to meet changing business requirements.
6. Use cloud- and network-based services for redundancy to support critical operations.
7. Develop telecommuting programs for employees.
8. Train and educate your employees.
9. Utilize social media to update stakeholders, including customers and employees.
10. Review, test and refresh – continually.

Multinationals are reliant upon communications infrastructure in order to be efficient, competitive and in many cases to operate at all! The key for today's successful business organization is to effectively balance technology and business drivers – embracing the latest technical developments, such as cloud technology, can be key in doing this and provide various business continuity options not previously possible. In doing so, not only will they be able to build a successful business continuity planning process but, they will also develop a comprehensive understanding of technology's role in the operation of their enterprise.

Verizon offers a comprehensive portfolio of business-continuity solutions, including a broad array of professional consulting services to help safeguard businesses and governments.