In today's rapidly changing business environment, it's important to be ready to respond to every risk or opportunity. In this white paper, you'll learn how to determine risks, calculate impact, evaluate your current structure’s response and test overall resilience. Then you'll see how IBM can help you combine several risk management strategies into a single integrated one, so you’re better able to respond to the threat of disaster and stay ahead of the competition.
IBM Global ServicesJanuary 2007
Beyond disaster recovery: becoming
a resilient business.
An object-oriented framework and methodology
by Richard Cocchiara Chief technology officer for business continuity and resilience servicesBeyond disaster recovery: becoming a resilient business. Page
Executive summary Contents As you probably understand all too well, today's business environment is characterized by rapid, unpredictable change. Some changes bring opportu-2 Executive summary nities for your business, while others bring challenges and sometimes even 3 Coping with continuous threats. But no matter what, your business has to be responsive and resilient-change seamlessly taking advantage of opportunities while mitigating risks. Your IT 4 What business resilience infrastructure must be designed to help ensure the continuity of your business means-some basic operations in the event of an unexpected disruption, and to secure data integ-requirements rity. It also must help you comply with government regulations and integrate 5 The business resilience risk strategies to reduce costs, and it must be able to scale rapidly and auto-framework-an object-oriented matically as the marketplace changes. approach11 The business resilience To help organizations understand and manage the process of becoming transformation lifecycle-a resilient, IBM has developed an object-oriented framework and transforma-roadmap for becoming a tion lifecycle. Borrowing from the concept of an object-oriented database, stronger, more responsive IBM has created a business resilience framework that is designed to help you business23 Why IBM? identify the object layers that make up your company-ranging from the stra-tegic overlay, all the way down to the nuts-and-bolts technologies and facilities. Within each layer, the objects are assigned specific attributes that help manage the risks associated with each object. Once you understand these objects, their attributes and the relationships among them, you can begin to identify areas for improvement. IBM can take you through the business resilience transfor-mation lifecycle to help you:
. Determine which risks may affect your organization. Calculate the potential impact that these risks could have on your organization. Plan for how the objects in your current infrastructure could respond to these risksBeyond disaster recovery: becoming a resilient business. Page
. Design or update your infrastructure to mitigate these risks and to leverage Highlights any opportunities that might arise from marketplace changes. Execute your strategy for improving your business resilience. Implement the changes to each object layer. Test your overall resilience. Manage your resilience program to incorporate improvements and changes in technology.
This white paper explores the business and technical advantages of an object-oriented framework and transformation lifecycle for business resilience.
Coping with continuous changeAs you know, fluctuating business conditions are a double-edged sword. Almost any risk-whether it comes in the form of an opportunity or a threat-Any risk, whether opportunity or requires a response from your business. If you respond inappropriately or threat, requires a response from too slowly, you could lose ground to your competitors. For example, while your business. too much success may not sound like a threat to your business, it can become one if you're not prepared to handle a surge in customer demand. For example, when Victoria's Secret televised a fashion show during the 1997 American foot-ball Super Bowl, the company was unable to scale to meet the ensuing demand for access to its Web site, resulting in significant performance degradation and customer dissatisfaction.
On the other hand, a disruption in business operations and services, whether from a natural disaster, a terrorist strike, a cyber attack or a simple malfunc-tion, can seriously reduce your revenues and even do long-term damage to Beyond disaster recovery: becoming a resilient business. Page
your brand. Industry estimates indicate that upwards of 40 percent of organi-Highlights zations without business continuity and recovery plans will go out of business within a few years of a major disaster.
Combining several risk management The best response to the threat of disaster is to combine several disparate risk-strategies ... [download for more]
