This is the Australian Government official website, published in 2009, which provides an insight into the principles, standards and codes for management of the risks established by the conjoined efforts of Australian and New Zealand Government. Regular surfing of this site helps the companies and businesses to mitigate the intensity of the potential risks, that destroy the stability in the business actitivities (Finance.gov.au, 2017).
It is a handbook published jointly by the Australian and the New Zealand government in the year of 2004. The main contents of the handbook are the standards, which help the personnel of the companies and organizations to manage the potential risjs in an efficient manner (Saiglobal.com, 2017).
4 relevant legislation and regulations that impact on business continuity
Introduction and Case Overview
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plans closely relate and explains the preparation for unforeseen risks by organizations for enhanced sustainability. Fire emergency planning, response, and mitigation require scientific elaboration by the affected organization (Wallace & Webber, 2010). This study analyses the case of a shopping complex over which a large scale fire broke out in the night time when many tenants were still within the shopping complex. The source of the fire break down was not known. However, the fire rapidly spread to cover the whole structure, and all the close business premises also got damaged. The fire disaster destroyed all the air conditioning and electrical systems of the shopping complex. There were approaches to extinguish the fire by the structure’s water sprinkling machine, but the fire persisted (Snedaker, 2013). The media tarnished the reputation of risk management approaches to the administration of the shopping mall. This case study will be used in designing and developing a disaster recovery and business continuity plan aimed at minimizing any future occurrence of such a situation in the premise.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan
Business continuity involves the procedures and processes to be undertaken by the organization to ensure the proper functioning of business operations during and after the event of fire disaster (Tammineedi, 2010). The disaster recovery plans used in the enterprise are technical and designed for particular groups within the premise to assist recover a given business application. To minimize, mitigate and recover risk impacts to the shopping complex businesses, integration of business continuity and disaster recovery plans will be adopted and applied in the following procedure:
Know Business Risks
The shopping complex is surrounded by numerous potential business risks naturally, societal hazards related, and supply chain risks. Under this case, the current risk under evaluation is building a fire whose impact is adverse to both the tenants operating within the mall and the neighboring premises. The fire breaks down caused the destruction of electrical and air conditioning systems, and this requires a technology related approach to mitigate Randeree, K., (Mahal & Narwani, 2012). To solve electrical and air conditioning risks, a disaster recovery planning technique is recommended. Since building fire hazard has been identified, business continuity plans will be employed to extinguish the fire in the event of a break down as well as forming fire risk mitigation strategies to be used in the future. However, criminal activity and staff loss are other potential business related risks in the premise. The management should use data recovery technologies to establish theft prevention programs to safeguard the malls business properties (Herbane, 2010). Further, integration of business continuity and data recovery techniques should be used to prevent loss of employees to the competing firms through training and giving reasonable remuneration.
Conduct a Business Impact Analysis
The conduction of these business impacts analysis will involve:
Product and Service Identification
The key products and services affected by the fire disaster in the shopping complex include electrical systems, air-conditioning equipment, building sprinklers, bordering premises products, staff works, and other business operations undertaken by the tenants in the mall (Calkin, Thompson, & Finney, 2015). The entire mall was closed down by fire services, and this is an adverse effect.
Deciding on how to Stop Delivering Them
The delivery of the key products and services affected by both the structural and natural fire disaster as mentioned above has to be stopped (Cutter, Burton, & Emrich, 2010). Through the assistance of technology executives who use disaster recovery strategies, development of a supplier to customer delivery system will be done so that the electrical systems and air conditioners will be delivered directly to the customers other than being sold in the mall.
Identification of Critical Inputs
The crucial inputs in this case of fire break down in the shopping mall include: finding the source of the fire so as to form risk avoidance approaches for future purpose, determination of the total value of tenants property damaged by the fire, instructing all employees working in the mall to stay at home until further notice, and involving security guards in property control and access(Herbane, 2010).
Develop Continuity Strategies to Operate the Business
The use of business continuity and disaster recovery techniques will help the management design continuity strategies that will keep business operations under the shopping complex out of disruption (Hystad & Keller, 2008). The continuity strategies developed are as explained:
Installation of Fire Backup Equipment
With the aid of disaster recovery technologies, the management of the shopping mall will design fire back up and safety equipment such as fire extinguishers, pull boxes, sprinkler systems, smoke and heat detectors, security gates, and specialized fire alert alarms.
Skill-Sharing and Staff Cross-Training
The management of the shopping complex will organize tenants cross training tips to lower the impacts of property destruction in the event of a natural or structural calamity. These tips for employee training will include: organizing practical employee training activities to equip single skilled employees with a variety of skills for fire prevention (Lindström, Samuelsson, & Hägerfors, 2010).
Storing Insurance, Contracts, and Other Important Policy Documents Electronically
Since the occurrence of natural calamities is unpredictable, the management and all tenants operating within the mall should store the contract policies, insurance policies, and other relevant documents electronically in emails (Offia Ibem, 2011). These documents can even be kept far and outside the premises.
Adopting Manual Processes to Replace Computer Systems
In the event of fire break down in the mall, the tenants carrying out business operations within the roof should use manual processes in the selling of products (Pelling & Wisner, 2012). For example, the use of manual receipts other than electronic receipts when customers pay for the products.
Identify Communication Needs
Effective communication plays a significant role in risk avoidance as well as minimizing the impacts caused to the enterprise in the event of risk occurrence (Bhamra, Dani, & Burnard, 2011). The key contacts where communication is needed include:
Staff
In the case of calamity, the staff should be advised to remain at home and not visit the complex for they make give emotional and unreliable information to the press.
Customers
The competent customers should provide a brief information to the media people of the effects of fire breakdown to the mall on their shopping problems.
Suppliers
Effective communication will enable the management to liaise with external suppliers who can supply products to their customer’s premises on their behalf.
Regulators
Maintaining close contact with capital market authorities guarantees all business operators in the shopping complex a continued business operations once the menace is resolved.
Contractors
Once the fire has broken into the firm, the management will subcontract external third party companies to deliver products and services on their behalf outside the shopping complex.
Equipment Maintenance Companies
Communication between the shopping mall owners and equipment maintenance companies is required. These firms will help in fastening repair of fire sprinklers and air conditioners.
Be Ready to go
To ensure continued business success in the shopping complex, contingency plans require getting set. The management has to communicate continuity plans to the staff so that they may know how to use them effectively (Asgary, Anjum, & Azimi, 2012). Organizing simple discussion forums with all employees to share ideas about what customers would react if a range of situations will be made. Such situations where staff and customers response is needed include:
Disruption of Electricity Supply for Two Days
Disruption of electricity supply within the shopping complex where there are no power backups will lead to customers complaints and dissatisfaction.
Key Supplier Closing Down a Short Notice
Issuance of a short notice not to supply a demanded commodity to the shopping complex will substitute the business to losses and fewer profits since they cannot meet the demand.
Burning Down of Shopping Site
The operations of the firm will stop, and this results in suffering by customers since they have no access to the core demands.
Injuring of Staff in a Car Accident
The injured staff will automatically be off from work for some months. Customers feel that this will be to their disadvantage since there is no one to attend to their needs as required.
Review Your Plan
The Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan(BCDR) designed in response to the fire breakdown to the shopping mall is viable and will lead to sustainability of businesses. However, with the growth of the businesses, adjustments to the BCDR plan will be required (Alhazmi & Malaiya, 2012). The BCDR plan designed will be reviewed after every six months to check whether there are any changes that need to get made. Below is a summary plan example for the next 12 months.
First 6 months: Review whether the designed business continuity strategies have been effective. For example, if the manual processes do not work efficiently then the management should adjust to PayPal and Skrill product payment systems which are faster and more reliable.
Next 6 Months: The management should check the effect of installed fire backup systems in risk minimisation and mitigation. Supposed they have worked well; the management should further improve the intelligence and preparedness to lower risk occurrence probabilities as low as possible.
Adherence to the integrated structure and framework assists the comapnies and organizations to carry out the tasks in an efficient manner. Presence of an integrated framework even proves beneficial for minimising the potential risks that destroyes the efficiency in the business activities (Saiglobal.com, 2017). In case of Couriers Please, holding meetings with the staffs and the managers would result in the creation of a framework, which helps in restoring the lost glory from the business. Refering to the current utilization of IT devices would help the personnel in creating and developing the Business Conitnuity Plan. Evaluation of this plan would help the personnel to examine its appropriateness in terms of development, outsourcing and transmission of the IT storage procedures to the staffs (Hatton et al., 2016).
Inclusion of an innovative monitoring system within the continuity plan would establish relevancy with the business requirements. Providing training to the staffs would make them familiar about the IT processes and business continity management framework (McNeil, Frey & Embrechts, 2015). Frequent meetings with the IT companies would help the Couriers Please to examine the current scenario of the storage procedures (Meyer et al., 2013).).
Changes can be made in the Business Continuity plan according to the business requirements. For this, hiring the specialists and experts would prove beneficial for the company, Couriers Please in terms of ensuring the safety of the personnel and the customers. Application of alternate solutions like remote log-in for the staffs would prove beneficial for the compamny in terms of continuing the IT business actitivies. Continuous evaluation would enhance the quality of the services (Sahebjamnia, Torabi & Mansouri, S. A. (2015).
Apart from this, independent audits would upgrade the individual performnance of the personnel. As a matter of specification, it would help them in identifying their drawbacks and rectify them. For this, hiring of compenent persons would act as a wise approach for the company in setting standards for continuing with the business (Jurisch, Rosenberg & Krcmar, 2016).
Conclusion
The growth in recognition that modern technology needs integration with business management policies in the risk plan formulation have brought the trends of disaster recovery and business continuity together. Effective risk management approaches lead to decreased risk severity and probability as well as enhanced control. Therefore, companies should design well structured Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plans so as to lower the likelihood of disaster occurrence as well as minimizing risk severity levels.
References
Alhazmi, O. H., & Malaiya, Y. K. (2012), November). Assessing disaster recovery alternatives: On-site, colocation or cloud. In Software Reliability Engineering Workshops (ISSREW), 2012 IEEE 23rd International Symposium on (pp. 19-20). IEEE.
Asgary, A., Anjum, M. I., & Azimi, N. (2012). Disaster recovery and business continuity after the 2010 flood in Pakistan: Case of small businesses. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 2, 46-56.
Available at: https://www.saiglobal.com/PDFTemp/Previews/OSH/as/misc/handbook/HB221-2004.PDF [Accessed on: 22 April 2017]
Bernstein, A. (2015). Things happen: putting in place a business continuity plan. Nursing And Residential Care, 17(10), 582-584.
Bhamra, R., Dani, S., & Burnard, K. (2011). Resilience: the concept, a literature review, and future directions. International Journal of Production Research, 49(18), 5375-5393.
Calkin, D. E., Thompson, M. P., & Finney, M. A. (2015). Negative consequences of positive feedbacks in US wildfire management. Forest Ecosystems, 2(1), 9.
Cutter, S. L., Burton, C. G., & Emrich, C. T. (2010). Disaster resilience indicators for benchmarking baseline conditions. Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, 7(1).
Finance.gov.au (2017), Risk Management Fact Sheet, Availiable at: https://www.finance.gov.au/sites/default/files/COV_216905_Risk_Management_Fact_Sheet_FA3_23082010_0.pdf [Accessed on 22 April 2017]
Hatton, T., Grimshaw, E., Vargo, J., & Seville, E. (2016). Lessons from disaster: Creating a business continuity plan that really works. Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning, 10(1), 84-92.
Herbane, B. (2010). The evolution of business continuity management: A historical review of practices and drivers. Business History, 52(6), 978-1002.
Hystad, P. W., & Keller, P. C. (2008). Towards a destination tourism disaster management framework: Long-term lessons from a forest fire disaster. Tourism Management, 29(1), 151-162.
Lam, J. (2014). Enterprise risk management: from incentives to controls. John Wiley & Sons.
Lindström, J., Samuelsson, S., & Hägerfors, A. (2010). Business continuity planning methodology. Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, 19(2), 243-255.
McNeil, A. J., Frey, R., & Embrechts, P. (2015). Quantitative risk management: Concepts, techniques and tools. Princeton university press.
Meyer, A., Pufahl, L., Fahland, D., & Weske, M. (2013). Modeling and enacting complex data dependencies in business processes. In Business Process Management (pp. 171-186). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Offia Ibem, E. (2011). Challenges of disaster vulnerability reduction in Lagos Megacity Area, Nigeria. Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, 20(1), 27-40.
Pelling, M., & Wisner, B. (2012). Disaster risk reduction: Cases from urban Africa. Routledge.
Randeree, K., Mahal, A., & Narwani, A. (2012). A business continuity management maturity model for the UAE banking sector. Business Process Management Journal, 18(3), 472-492.
Sahebjamnia, N., Torabi, S. A., & Mansouri, S. A. (2015). Integrated business continuity and disaster recovery planning: Towards organizational resilience. European Journal of Operational Research, 242(1), 261-273.
Saiglobal.com (2017), Australian/New Zealand Standard Handbook AS/NZS HB221:2004
Snedaker, S. (2013). Business continuity and disaster recovery planning for IT professionals. Newnes.
Tammineedi, R. L. (2010). Business continuity management: A standards-based approach. Information Security Journal: A Global Perspective, 19(1), 36-50.
Wallace, M., & Webber, L. (2010). The disaster recovery handbook: A step-by-step plan to ensure business continuity and protect vital operations, facilities, and assets. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.
Zadek, S., Evans, R., & Pruzan, P. (2013). Building corporate accountability: Emerging practice in social and ethical accounting and auditing. Routledge.
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