Knoxville-area business owners learn to prevent disasters
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/aug/26/workshop-offers-recovery-advice/
By Hugh G. Willett [log in to unmask]
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Not many company owners would say their business is a train wreck.
Peter Heles and his family company can attest to such a situation because in 1972, the owner had a train run through his building.
As president of Framework IT, a Zionsville, Ind., provider of disaster recovery solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses, Heles has been exposed to almost every kind of natural or human-made disaster that can befall a company.
"Ninety-five percent of all nonregulated businesses don't have a business continuity plan," Heles said.
The cost of not having a plan can be enormous, Heles told a group of Knoxville small-business owners and information technology and human resources managers at a Tuesday workshop sponsored by Claris Networks.
It only took 90 days for the Heles family's plumbing supply business to rebuild from the train disaster, but customers were not so forgiving. It took three years before business returned to normal, he said.
"The purpose of a disaster recovery program is to reduce the time it takes to bring the business back to a 'new normalcy,' " he said.
Other disasters that can strike a company include environmental, such as Hurricane Katrina; technological, including information technology or communications failure; and various security threats.
Debbie Cook, a human resources manager for AllMeds in Oak Ridge, was urged by her company's president to attend the workshop for expertise in case an outbreak of swine flu reduces the number of employees available to run the company, she said. AllMeds develops medical information systems for hospitals and medical practices.
The Rev. Matthew Lindsey of Cornerstone Church, a Claris client, expressed interest in learning more about how his 900-member congregation can maintain communication with all its members in a crisis. It's during such a time that churches are most needed, he said.
Communications is a typical function that should be a part of a disaster recovery plan. In case of a telephone failure, most businesses can switch to a backup system within a week or sometimes longer, depending on how much they are willing to spend.
"If you had a plan in place you could recover in as little as 15 minutes," Heles advised.
A properly prepared disaster recovery plan should not only reduce risk and time to recovery, but also reduce insurance premiums by up to 7 percent, while increasing revenue and customer satisfaction. A company can distinguish itself among a customer's supply base by promoting its completion of a recovery plan, he said.
Another type of disaster is embezzlement of valuable data. A data thief can walk out the door with as much as six filing cabinets of data on a single 1-gigabyte USB data card, he said, noting that USB ports can be configured so they can't download data.
Creating such a plan should take about 40 hours plus one hour per each knowledge-based employee, Heles said. Framework offers a software solution based on a 64-step plan that starts with leadership and teamwork. Executive support for the plan is critical, he said.
After setting up a recovery team and creating a plan to communicate after a disaster, it is necessary to evaluate the risk in various departments and to prepare bulletproof solutions such as off-site storage of critical data, hardware and a place from which to work.
When negotiating a lease, for example, it's not difficult to include a clause in the contract guaranteeing that if the space should become unusable, the landlord has 72 hours to provide new space or the lease is void, he said.
It's also critical to periodically test the plan. Many companies have off-site document storage, but how many people know where the site is or if the documents are even there? One large document storage company recently ran out of secure storage space and began storing documents in a warehouse, he said.
Most importantly, businesses should develop their own plan with the help of consultants such as Claris, rather than outsourcing the entire task to an organization that might not understand the needs of the business, he said.
Hugh Willett is a freelance contributor to the News Sentinel.
 (c) 2009 Scripps Newspaper Group - Online


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