Business continuity lifecycle Services

Contingency Planning Assessment (CPA) helps businesses understand their potential exposure to a pandemic outbreak and implement strategies to safeguard employees and maintain operations should such an outbreak occur.

This new IBM service is based on industry best practices, government, World Health Organisation (WHO) and Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines, and the decades of experience of IBM's crisis response team in managing actual disaster situations.

During a critical situation, normal lines of communication may fail when you need them most. IBM Incident Communications Services powered by Whispir supercedes manual call trees with the objective of reducing the time taken to communicate, and the risk of incorrect messages being transmitted, at every phase of the communication lifecycle.

Incident Communications Services powered by Whispir facilitates streamlined and accurate collection, distribution, and management of information during a crisis to aid a rapid and effective response by your organisation.

When every second counts, Incident Communications Services powered by Whispir allows you to act faster, and better manage a situation as it evolves. Should a situation escalate it helps you maintain command, so your decisions can be more considered, rather than driven by adrenalin.

Learn more about Incident Communications Services (powered by Whispir) (1.06MB)

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What would it cost your business to be shut down for one hour? One day? One week? Our team of consultants will help you pinpoint the critical processes and recovery time requirements needed for your business to survive a major disruption.

The key to planning for business continuity lies in understanding the processes that are most critical to the success of your business, and then implementing strategies to protect the resources that support them.

While it is well known that management has a duty of care that includes taking steps to ensure business continuity, it can often be difficult to obtain commitment and funding for the program.

This half-day workshop helps you gain management commitment to invest in business continuity by raising awareness of the impacts of a disruption to your business.

Based on the information collected, management will gain insight into what your critical business functions are, financial and operational consequences of their loss plus put potential recovery and existing continuity strategies in place.

	Potential consequences to the organisation if key business functions could not be performed.
	The magnitude and breadth of these consequences, allowing business functions to be prioritised
	For those functions rated as critical, the workshop will identify: Key risks of concern. The level of dependence of IT and extent to which the business can work without IT. Maximum tolerable outage timeframes for both application and data. Manual workarounds and business continuity strategies. Lost data consequences including the ability to recreate transactions.

Highlights:

	Only a half-day commitment for your key stakeholders.
	Identification of high-level business continuity strategies.
	Insights to help obtain business funding for a business continuity program.

Learn more about Business Continuity Scoping Workshop (90KB)

^ Please see bottom of this page for a summary of Process and Conditions and Business Continuity Program classification.

IBM will use findings from your Business Impact Analysis to develop potential strategies to mitigate risks. These strategies may range from utilisation of shared or dedicated backup sites for your IT or workforce through to fully scoped high availability solutions, depending on your business requirements. Advantages ally scoped high availability solutions, depending on your business requirements. Advantages and disadvantages of each potential scenario will be compared to determine the most appropriate solution. IBM can also perform an independent assessment of your strategy.

The speed with which modern business is transacted means that a disruption of only a few hours can have a catastrophic impact on the profitability and reputation of your organisation.

Putting in place a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) will help you avoid financial losses, meet legal requirements, protect the safety of key assets and resources, including employees, and mitigate negative publicity.

The main focus of this program is to provide you with a clear outline of a business continuity framework tailored to your organisation. This can then be used to better inform key stakeholders of the methodology and contents of the plan.

	A full day's consultation with IBM experts to guide you through IBM's unique methodology for creating a BCP framework.
	A comprehensive review of any existing plans for viability and completeness.
	Recommendations to address any gaps in your current BCP plan.
	The provision of a customised BCP template for your future requirements.

Highlights:

	A high-level methodology to develop your own BCP.
	Development of a customised BCP template.
	Mentoring and guidance to complete the plan.

Learn more about Business Continuity Plan Development (107KB)

^ Please see bottom of this page for a summary of Process and Conditions and Business Continuity Program classification.

The key objective of this consultation is to review your current IT disaster recovery plan against industry best practice. The review will look at recovery documentation including:

	Business requirements.
	Problem alert and escalation procedures.
	Change management processes.
	Backup strategies.
	Technical schema.
	Offsite backup processes.
	Storage procedures.

Business Continuity Planning is not a project with a finite commencement and conclusion, Business Continuity Planning is an ongoing iterative process.

If your main site is unavailable there is no point in having your Business Continuity Plan (BCP) there. The web-based model used by the BCP Toolkit removes your reliance on the very infrastructure at risk of being impacted by a critical event affecting your business. The BCP Toolkit allows you to access your BCP when you need it from wherever you can gain web access.

Learn more about the BCP Toolkit (179KB)

Maintaining a current and well-rehearsed Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) is absolutely vital in ensuring your business is always prepared to handle any unexpected threat or event.

This review compares your current DRP documentation including business requirements, problem alert and escalation procedures, change management processes, backup strategies, technical schema, offsite backup processes and storage procedures – against industry best practice.

	Identification of gaps in your current DRP that would hinder your organisation's current recovery strategy.
	Discussion regarding these gaps with the organisation sponsor and updating of the DRP to mitigate the gaps.
	Facilitation of a two-hour walkthrough test of the draft DRP to raise awareness, identify further gaps and confirm viability from a documentation standpoint.
	An update and the presentation of a draft new DRP (depending on the complexity of the DRP and the number of gaps found).

Highlights:

	An independent review of your DRP by a highly professional and experienced IBM consultant
	Updated DRP that is current and aligned with the current IT strategy and conforms to best practice.
	More informed understanding of your staff's individual responsibilities.

Learn more about Disaster Recovery Plan Review (97KB)

^ Please see bottom of this page for a summary of Process and Conditions and Business Continuity Program classification.

This provides backup and recovery services for your IBM and multi-vendor IT, and your networks, to help you protect and recover critical data and technology, allocate alternate business user environments and arrange for replacement equipment – regardless of platform. Our consultants will work with you to help assess and improve recoverability and identify and mitigate risks to your infrastructure. This service also covers call centre continuity and total continuity program management.

	Call centre continuity
	Recoverability assessment
	Recovery options for IBM technology
	Recovery options for multi-vendor technology
	Recovery options for networks
	Total continuity program management

This provides desktop, workstation, telephone and fax, photocopier and printer facilities, enabling core business teams to continue to collaborate and execute essential business processes in the event that access to your regular workplace is denied. IBM Workplace Continuity Services covers call centre continuity and can also provide your business with a fully operational alternative site (at one of our Recovery Centres) for use in the event of a disaster or for testing your Business recovery plans.

	Recovery options for workplace environments
	Call centre continuity

Testing helps you confirm that your Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) will be connected and robust if you ever need it. However, the way you set up the test is even more critical in ensuring that the results are in line with expected outcomes from the test.

The key objective of this one-day workshop is to brainstorm and discuss particular issues surrounding the testing of your organisation DRP. You can leverage the knowledge and experience of our expert consultant in writing test plans to ensure yours is tailored and well set up to suit your company needs.

After the workshop you will be able to use a test plan and report for future tests.

	Subject matter knowledge, experience and thought leadership in writing test plans, preparing for tests, facilitating and managing tests.
	A test plan template and test report template that can be used for future tests that your team conducts.

Learn more about Test Planning Workshop (106KB)

^ Please see bottom of this page for a summary of Process and Conditions and Business Continuity Program classification.

Information is one of your most valuable assets. Keeping it secure and available is an increasing challenge as businesses are exposed to more threats to the organisation, both internally and externally.

This review will clearly outline the current state of your Business Continuity Program with reference to industry best practice and pinpoint what you can expect to happen in the event of a real-life disaster.

The review includes the appropriateness and feasibility of your continuity policies, and how effectively they have been implemented throughout the business. The comprehensiveness of your continuity program including testing and maintenance will also be assessed.

	Current business and technology recovery strategies.
	Backup and offsite storage processes.
	Data access security.
	User IDs and password allocation and controls.
	Authorisation levels.
	Change Control.
	Archiving and obsolescence.
	Problem management.
	Relevant business resumption and disaster recovery plans.
	Relevant operational documentation.
	Single point failures.

Highlights:

	A single objective report describing the findings, gaps and potential risks to your business.
	A prioritised list of recommended actions that need to be taken to bring your Business Continuity Program up to date.

Learn more about Disaster Recovery Capability Review (90KB)

^ Please see bottom of this page for a summary of Process and Conditions and Business Continuity Program classification.