DATA, NETWORK & APPLICATION MANAGEMENT

An IBM survey showed that 35% of respondents said they would not apply for positions in an organisation that does not have an effective business continuity strategy for remote and hybrid work. With that in mind, we also understand that business continuity is not just about remote work but, most importantly, preventing adverse business impact in the event of an incident. 

From geopolitical instability due to the war in Europe to the post-pandemic new normal, your business has to deal with new and ever-changing risks that threaten to disrupt business performance. The way out entails defining an adequate strategy for you to be able to keep your business running in the event and in the aftermath of a disruptive situation.  

WHAT TO EXPECT

An effective business continuity strategy that combines people, processes, and technology entails: 

1. Identifying the systems that need a business continuity program and redundancy
2. Measuring the redundancies that need to be built into the system as part of the business continuity strategy
3. Identifying cost-effective solutions to bridge the gap between the to-be and as-is states
4. Implementing and testing these solutions as part of DR Tests, Stress Tests, and Failover Tests to measure the Recovery Time and Recovery Point objectives, the time taken for the failover systems to become operational and measuring the effective business impact in downtime, and lastly, mapping it to the objectives and defining a roadmap to achieving the defined BC/DR objectives. 

Effectively solutioning for business continuity needs an approach that assesses the risks that the business is exposed to, identifies strategies that address each of them individually, and forms a part of the enterprise BC/DR strategy. This, in turn, entails:

• Business Operations Continuity that encompasses remote working, hybrid working models, and the associated Identity and Access Management (IAM), security, connectivity, and the requisite capacity of the underlying infrastructure. These need to be tested regularly to maintain compliance and in achieving the defined objectives. 
• Systems Continuity that defines the frequency of backup based on the Recovery Point Objectives of the different assets covered by the BC/DR strategy, the capacity of these DR assets (DR applications and infrastructure), and by default, the maintenance and currency of these failover systems. 
• People strategy that helps the employees to understand and act appropriately in the event of a business continuity event. From fire drills to testing of services during failover, and exhaustive documentation and training to help the users understand their responsibilities during a business continuity event and how they can play their part is the most important part of the business continuity strategy.  

HOW IVALUE CAN HELP? 

iValue helps you by working with your business leaders to identify the systems that need redundancy, the business units, the teams, and the processes that are invoked as part of the business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) plan. 

Once identified, iValue evaluates the as-is people, processes, and technologies to identify gaps, and presents you with granular reports. In addition, we also test the DR systems and report on the RPO and RTO compliance against the predefined objectives. 

Once the as-is analysis is complete, we help you define the business continuity strategy for people, processes, and technology. 

• We define what applications and infrastructure would be adequate to achieve your RPO and RTO
• We evaluate your BC/DR investment and associated constraints and do a risk analysis to identify potential vulnerabilities in the investment strategy
• We evaluate the DR-readiness of your people and take steps to improve awareness and sensitivity to the BC/DR strategy and plan. 
• We propose a holistic solution that encompasses the people, processes, and technologies that form the BC/DR strategy.

iValue helps you organize your approach and strategy toward business continuity into a seamless process percolating from the top-down, thus centralizing and streamlining your response to business continuity incidents.