Bond Technologies: October 2005

Please leave a post here or email drsbanerji@gmail.com if you find any of the links inactive in the following article.

Floods, fires, accidents and earthquakes-we have seen them all in the last 100 days. Those who were unfortunate to suffer direct loss or inconvenience must have taken steps for disaster recovery. Business continuity will be easier the next time around for affected individuals and organizations who live in New Orleans, use the London underground everyday or survive in the mountainous terrain shared by Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

Is there a way to prevent or at least mitigate the hardship that all stakeholders have to endure when the untoward hits us without warning? Deep and thorough analysis of everyday events from around the world can strengthen and validate the disaster recovery templates we deploy in our business, official and personal lives. Risk Management has excellent but probably underutilized tools such as Life Cycle Analysis and Hazard and Operability Studies, to name just two that can help both individuals and organizations.

Most of us are relatively well prepared for risks that are both probable and serious. Health insurance for major surgery and chronic illness are almost universal in the developed world. It is the same with auto insurance, albeit with more regulatory pressure. We are justifiably less concerned with probable risks that have no serious consequences. A traffic snarl could upset an appointment, but surely a reasonable client would understand! We may not stuff a change of clothes, or even a toothbrush in carry-on baggage for a flight, but we may cajole some shopping money from the airline!

A common Achilles heel is an extremely serious risk with low probability. Recall that Sandoz Limited conducted successful business for 100 years before a fire caught some of us with our pants down! It is not accidents alone; a sudden flurry of unsavory publicity is an example of a misfortune that can jump from one sector of business or social activity to another with capricious surprise.

Business Stewardship demands that we leave no stone unturned to defend the brands that feed us. Eternal vigilance is the price of remaining in business! There are two keys to improving all-round response ability:

a. Analyze all adverse events, wherever they may occur, and whichever sector they may hit with most force. Use such incidents for rehearsal and to keep your disaster recovery teams fighting fit.

b. Build ever expanding networks of all categories of stakeholders, trained, equipped and responsible to help you respond to a disaster with the least possible impact on business continuity.

The rest of this post contains links to adverse events in the last 30 days. I have chosen ones that are universal in terms of possibly affecting just about anyone. Do let me know, by post here or at drsbanerji@gmail.com if you feel that one of more of the instances is irrelevant in your opinion. Otherwise, you could use them to find answers to the following test questions:

i. How would I respond if my cell phone carries a message right now, that such an adverse event has hit my business or family?

ii. How many associates do I have on-site with money, materials, information, skills and authority today, to deal responsibly and in adequate manner, so that my routine would be disrupted minimally if at all?

May the efforts that I suggest above prove to be an utter waste of time!

I repeat that I am willing to do the mouse-work and get you original reports from archives, if any of the following links are inactive:

http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEQ20050917013950&Page=Q&Title=ORISSA&Topic=0

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002500801_dige17m.html

http://www.theiowachannel.com/news/4984649/detail.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-1785260,00.html

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1469062.htm

http://www.sundayherald.com/51802

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/a77efc2ce3301d415d62063646427205.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/09/21/nfruit21.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/09/21/ixhome.html

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20050920-1605-ca-twainsfrog.html

http://www.journal-advocate.com/Stories/0,1413,120~7826~3062673,00.html