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Five Steps to Evaluating Business Continuity Services

A do-it-yourself approach to business continuity has its advantages but isnt right for everyone.

“Business continuity plans that are generated by people within the department with known [software] like MS Word and Excel have always proven to be more successful in a real disaster,” says Jack Smith, first vice president and manager of global IT business continuity at ABN Amro in Chicago. “Multimillion-dollar solutions can help you get through your audit, but they’re an albatross because they have to please so many masters. By the time you fully implement them, your grandchildren are running [the company],” he adds.

Smith saw his business continuity plan in action in December 2004 when the LaSalle Bank Building in Chicago, a subsidiary of ABN Amro, caught fire and became the largest skyscraper fire in the history of the city. More than 6,000 workers were displaced—4,000 of them bank employees.

With Smith’s simplified BC plan in place, the financial institution mobilized and kept business running. “We filed $50 million in property damage and zero in business interruption,” Smith says.

At Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance, Larry Marler has also reviewed packaged BC planning software and taken a pass. “I discovered I could write my own software to meet the company’s needs without all the overkill,” says the disaster recovery coordinator at the Ridgeland, Miss., insurance company. When the company was hit hard by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, Marler had a chance to see his business continuity plans in action.

But Forrester’s Balaouras sees problems with simple planning tools. “Without the software, how do you keep plans updated, collaborate, invoke a plan and track that all the tasks are being executed?” she asks. “Software makes it easier to turn BC planning from a one-time event into an actual program.” Her rule of thumb: Companies with more than 50 entities that must have a coordinated business continuity plan should take a serious look at BC planning software. “Everyone uses the same templates; plans have all the key components that are thorough and meet company standards for quality and consistency.”

2 Consider the major business continuity/availability service providers and some niche players.

Hosted business continuity/availability providers typically provide cold sites (data center space to house your own equipment and backup tapes), warm sites and hot sites (an operationally ready data center), as well as data archival, restoration capabilities, managed services—you name it.

SunGard, IBM Business Continuity Resiliency Services (part of IBM Global Services) and Hewlett-Packard own the worldwide market share in this segment with the broadest set of services.