“Creating and managing an effective Business Continuity programme requires a diverse set of skills, ranging from project management and facilitation to specialist knowledge on business continuity itself,” says Tracey Linnell, GM Advisory Services at ContinuitySA. “As Africa’s premier provider of business continuity management services, ContinuitySA offers a range of training programmes in this discipline through its Compete Continuity Training Academy. Our training offers a way for executives involved in business continuity to hone their skills and keep up to date with new standards and industry trends.”

Among the Academy’s offerings is a one-hour session, aimed at giving operational executives a high-level awareness of Business Continuity Management. The session explores Business Continuity Management and covers the reasons for implementing a Business Continuity Management programme as well as how to do it. A more detailed one-day course introduces these concepts in more detail for middle managers.

Two-day IT Service Continuity Training is aimed at executives responsible for the continuity of IT services within their organisation, while the five-day Complete Continuity Practitioner Programme is designed to equip executives in all aspects of implementing, managing and maintaining an effective framework for Business Continuity Management.

“Business Continuity Management is intimately connected to the way a company conducts its operations, and its training needs will reflect that, as well as the specific skills profile of its staff. Consequently, the Complete Continuity Training Academy also offers customised continuity training,” Linnell says.

Customised courses are compiled in consultation with ContinuitySA’s Business Continuity Management Advisory Services to ensure that they deliver what is required, and are aligned with the client’s operational context.

For a full list of course dates please visit www.continuitysa.com

This latest outbreak of bird flu has had a very serious impact on China’s poultry sector, with losses of more than $1.6 billion reported already. Closer to home in South Africa, bird flu is crippling exports of Ostrich products. Reportedly, 50% of ostrich farmers have had to close their businesses resulted in significant job losses. Estimated losses for the sector, according to some, are running at R100 million per month.

Over the years, the flu virus has demonstrated its ability to mutate into more virulent strains which can spread quickly. Recently, various strains of bird flu, the SARS virus, swine flu and Hong Kong flu have spread rapidly around the world. While the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 was the big killer—50 to 100 million people are thought to have died around the world—other pandemics have had severe impacts on productivity. The Center for Disease Control in the United States estimated that a “medium-level” avian flu pandemic could have an economic impact of up $166.5 billion, with seasonal flu responsible for some $10 billion in lost productivity and direct medical expenses—and these are 2006 estimates.

“The latest outbreak of bird flu in China and in South Africa should act as a timely reminder that we are now entering the flu and cold season,” says David Bollaert, a Senior BCM Advisor at ContinuitySA, Africa’s leading provider of business continuity solutions. “Whether it’s just a cold or the latest flu strain, these diseases can spread very quickly in a company and cause many hours of lost productivity as people spend time at home, visiting doctors or performing their duties at lower productivity level.”

Because a pandemic can affect a business’ ability to function, its business continuity plan should include a pandemic policy that lays out the processes for minimising risk. Among these processes are infection prevention and control measures aimed at halting or at least minimising the spread of infectious diseases.

“Companies need to guard against large numbers of employees becoming affected—that’s when the business’s capacity to operate becomes compromised,” says Mr Bollaert. “Before the flu season starts, I advise all companies to make sure their pandemic policy and response strategy is adequate, infection prevention measures are in place and that, most importantly, employees are informed and empowered.”

Prevention is always better than cure; this is a good time for the company to provide refresher information on how to improve health and basic hygiene. Eating healthier food, exercising and getting enough sleep will all help boost immune systems and lower infection rates—and getting a flu vaccination early is also to be recommended.

It is also worth reminding employees how effective basic hygiene can be in reducing cross-infection rates. Thorough, frequent hand-washing, covering one’s mouth when sneezing and wiping down surfaces in high-contact areas like hallways and washrooms with anti-bacterial cleaners can inhibit the spread of infections dramatically. Local research has shown that the use of antibacterial products alone can reduce the incidence of respiratory ailments by 85.8% in adults.

“Pandemics are a business issue: use your pandemic policy wisely to make sure your organisation stays safe and is able to continue delivering its critical services” concludes Mr Bollaert.

For more information on how ContinuitySA can assist you with your organisations business continuity plans please contact us.

Mr Taylor was addressing a briefing on the new ISO22301 standard, hosted by ContinuitySA as part of Business Continuity Awareness Week. Business Continuity Awareness Week (BCAW) is an annual global event organised by the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) and, this year, took place between 18-22 March.

Although South Africa has fully adopted the new standard, obtaining certification here is problematic at present as the South African National Accreditation Service (SANAS) has not yet decided whether it is viable to accredit local companies who would in turn be able to provide certification to local organisations. Alternatively, this certification can be done via internationally accredited certification companies through the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) who are party to the Multi Lateral Agreement (MLA) currently in place, but this approach is likely to be expensive and geographically problematic. While this issue is being resolved, South African companies should take a positive step towards organisational resilience and begin to align themselves with the new standard in preparation for Certification.

“Business continuity has been incorporated into the principles of King III and so is already on the corporate agenda,” Mr Taylor notes. “As most of King II was incorporated into the new Companies Act (2008), I would not be surprised if we found the King III recommendations making its way into Company legislation in due course.”

Three valuable practical resources for companies contemplating this move are Hilary Estall’s Business Continuity management systems: Implementation and certification to ISO 22301, The BCI’s Good Practice Guide (GPG) and Business Continuity for dummies.

Mr Taylor said that before considering the upgrading of an existing business continuity management system or implementing one from scratch, they should follow four steps.

“First make a strong business case,” he says. “It’s also vital to obtain an enthusiastic sponsor in top management and a suitably qualified implementer.”

The next step is to obtain the buy-in of the executive team and board of directors, which will mean identifying the benefits and costs of the chosen approach over the entire life cycle. Allied to this is the process of putting together a comprehensive, realistic budget that covers not just the implementation but also delivery. “Don’t restrict the budget discussion to basic resourcing of personnel money, make sure you provide for technological support resources you will need to make business continuity management work,” Mr Taylor adds.

The final step is the important task of building relationships. At one level, this means obtaining buy-in from the enterprise as broadly as possible but also building relationships with those who do not initially support the move. “There are always the doubters but if you work closely with them, they can be brought round to seeing the real benefits,” Mr Taylor observes. “I’ve had instances in which those who were most hostile at the beginning of the process have become business continuity champions.”

Once these four steps have been completed, the company will be prepared to embark on its programme to comply with ISO22301—and thus demonstrate its reliability as a business partner or service provider across its entire value chain.

For more information feel free to read the slide deck or view our services that ContinuitySA have to offer.

“Even more worrying, just over half of the companies surveyed suffered some sort of data loss or system downtime in the course of the last year,” comments Bradley Janse van Rensburg, solutions design manager at ContinuitySA. “Disasters continue to happen and they are typically the result of mundane rather than dramatic occurrences: hardware failure (61%), power outages (42%) and data corruption (25%). The technology to solve this problem exists but too few companies are using it effectively.”

He was speaking at a webinar that was part of ContinuitySA’s contribution to the annual Business Continuity Awareness Week, which took place between 18 and 22 March around the world.

“It’s important to understand what your company’s systems and strategies are, and the nature of the various protection methods,” Mr Janse van Rensburg says.

The most common approaches to the protection and recovery of ICT systems include high availability, replication, backup and archiving. The most important of these, because most companies rely on it as the copy of last resort, is backup.

One of the key things to get right from the start is de-duplication, which can reduce the amount of data stored by up 30 times, and the amount of data moved by up to 95%. All of these reductions result in the use of processing power for backup being reduced by up to 80% and the amount of bandwidth needed by up to 99%.

“De-duplication changes everything,” Mr Janse van Rensburg says.

Tape backup remains surprisingly pervasive: 40% of European companies still rely on it, but 80% want to move to disk-based backup. The move to disk-based backup is being driven by several benefits, among them strong de-duplication capabilities, the viability of change-only backups and strong indexing/ search functionality. Encryption makes it very safe. Restore and backup speeds are generally faster, and the medium is more durable than tape.

Hosted backup is also gaining in popularity because it offers all the benefits of disk-based backup and pay-per-use costing models. A local vault combined with offsite storage means that both backing up and restoring can be speedy; an additional benefit is the safe and quick transmission of backups offsite. Companies become highly dependent on their provider, however, so it is important to choose only the best.

Cloud-based backups are also gaining momentum. Like all cloud services, they offer pay-per-use pricing and are extremely cost-competitive thanks to economies of scale. Because they are online, they offer easy access and a high degree of self-provisioning. However, notes Mr Janse van Rensburg, clouds present large targets for attack and users do not know where their data is stored or under what legal regime.

Whatever method is chosen, Mr Janse van Rensburg says that it is very important to keep plans current.

“The research shows that almost half the companies review their backup and recovery plans (and commit more budget to them) only after disaster strikes,” he comments. “That’s too late. You need to understand your current system and data landscape well, and then agree on meaningful metrics to measure improvement. It’s important to see ICT protection improvement as continuous, and to begin with your biggest pain points. Finally, align the ICT protection plan to the bigger ICT and business strategies, and constantly build awareness and thus trust within the organisation.”

For more information feel free to read the slide deck or view our availability services that ContinuitySA have to offer.

“Cloud offers enterprises the benefits of reduced capital expenditure and staff requirements combined with scalability and quick deployment—something that’s hugely important in today’s fast-moving business environment,” says Shaheen Kalla, Managed Services Manager at ContinuitySA. “Cloud services coupled with service-level agreements and fixed penalties make it a viable alternative to internal hosting.”

Mr Kalla was speaking at a webinar which formed part of ContinuitySA’s contribution to the annual Business Continuity Awareness Week, which took place between 18 and 22 March around the world.

However, there are disadvantages to cloud that also need consideration, among them reliance on the provider for troubleshooting and security concerns about sensitive data. It must also be borne in mind that cloud providers are natural targets for hackers.

In moving to the cloud model, Mr Kalla argued that enterprises should consider a three-phased approach. The first stage is co-location or rack hosting, a model in which hardware moves to an offsite data centre. Drivers for such a move would include the size of the current environment, and its requirements for power and other peripheral services such as cooling and humidity control. If the organisation plans to expand, co-location would possibly be indicated, especially if, for example, one is reaching the limit of the power available on the site.

The next stage would be managed services, with the hardware continuing to be owned but the services delivered by a third party. This model is particularly well suited to Web-based “thin” applications, and suits companies that want to benefit from the maximum amount of depreciation from recently purchased assets. Service-level agreements govern this type of environment.

The final stage is the move to the cloud, a move, Mr Kalla says, that requires a mature and long-term outlook. “It’s a totally hand’s-off environment which might not please technical staff who typically like control. Moving to this model warrants an in-depth assessment of the service provider and its levels of security and responsiveness.”

Key things to look out for include close reading of the fine print to understand exactly what the service-level agreement covers and does not cover, and how and when penalties kick in. “It’s also vital to consider the implications of where the service provider’s data centres are located,” Mr Kalla says. “If located outside of the country, this will affect the latency and so the user experience on certain applications. Location will also affect what you are paying for the link to the centre, and will in turn affect the costs of migrating to cloud.”

Location is also critical for certain industries such as financial services—data privacy regulations specify where sensitive client data can be kept.

In general, it is very important to look at how data will be returned to you in the event of the contract ending or there is a breach of contract or the provider goes out of business.

“The most important thing to consider is the user experience. Without their buy-in, the migration will be a failure,” says Mr Kalla. “I advise clients to run a proof of concept with a small user group to see whether the experience is acceptable.”

For more information feel free to read the slide deck or view our hosting services that ContinuitySA have to offer.

The course provides an introduction to the principles of Business Continuity Management and includes the BCM lifecycle with built in tests to check progress which will help those new to the discipline who want an overview of the subject matter or those who want support as they revise for the BCI Certificate (CBCI) examination.

The content is based on the six BCM Professional Practices found in the Good Practice Guidelines (GPG).

Module 1 – An Introduction – What is Business Continuity Management?
Module 2– GPG Section 1 – How do I establish and manage Business Continuity?
Module 3 – GPG Section 2 – How do I embed Business Continuity within the organization?
Module 4 – GPG Section 3 – How do I analyze the organization?
Module 5 – GPG Section 4 – How do I determine the strategies and tactics to use?
Module 6 – GPG Section 5 – What plans do I develop and how?
Module 7 – GPG Section 6 – How do I improve the organization’s Business Continuity capability?

Module 8 – End of course Assessment.

The course will run at the ContinuitySA offices in Midrand on Monday March 18^th from 08.00 to 16.00. The course will be facilitated by Lynn Jackson,  who will share practical guidelines as he goes through the individual modules.

To register online click here or contact Cindy Bodenstein, Marketing Manager for ContinuitySA on cindy.bodenstein@continuitysa.co.za

For full details on all the ContinuitySA events supporting the BCAW including educational webinars and breakfast events click here.

Themed ” Business Continuity – for the risks you can see and the ones you can’t” will provide new opportunities for interested parties to engage with experts around the world and learn more about BCM and the ever growing range of risks that need to be planned for.

Interested parties can participate in the week through listening to a variety of Webinars presented by speakers from around the world. ContinuitySA are providing three of these speakers one of which will focus on Enterprise migration and adoption of cloud and will be presented by Shaheen Kalla – Manager: Managed Services, ContinuitySA

The paper will analyse the factors which promote migration to cloud based solutions and environments which are best suited for cloud. The webinar will talk around the migration plan for corporates into cloud services, what are the factors to consider and levels of planning needed when considering a cloud based solutions. What are the various steps along the way and potential pitfalls.

Date: Tuesday 19^th March

Time: 13:00 – 13.45 GMT + 2

Click Here to Register

For more information or to register please visit www.continuitysa.com or contact Cindy Bodenstein, Marketing Manager for ContinuitySA.

This year’s event themed” Business Continuity – for the risks you can see and the ones you can’t”will provide new opportunities for interested parties to engage with experts around the world and learn more about BCM and the ever growing range of risks that need to be planned for.

Through a series of Webinars interested parties can engage with authors on new research and papers throughout the week. The webinars can be viewed live and questions could be asked or watched online at one’s leisure.

One of the Webinars on Sensible ICT Protection and Recovery Methods will be presented by Bradley Janse van Rensburg – Solutions Design Manager, ContinuitySA.

Overwhelmed by the muddle of conflicting technology terms, jargon, buzzwords and misinformation CIOs and IT Managers are finding it increasingly difficult to objectively compare the different ICT Protection and Recovery Methods available to them and pick an approach that both matches their existing requirement and empowers their long term strategy. In this webinar ContinuitySA will clarify the difference between High Availability, Replication, Backup and Archiving and give a recommended approach to entrench resilience into ICT systems and business.

Date: Friday 22^nd March

Time: 13:00 – 13.45GMT + 2

Click Here to Register

For more information or to register please visit www.continuitysa.com or contact Cindy Bodenstein, Marketing Manager for ContinuitySA.

Bradley Janse van Rensburg joined ContinuitySA in 2000 as a Junior Technician, after matriculating at King Edward VII High School and has been involved in and passionate about Business Continuity and Resilience ever since. Bradley believes in continued learning and specifically focuses on training opportunities relating to Business Continuity, Microsoft Certification, Computer Assisted Design, Project Management, Business Presentation, general management and leadership. He has also been involved in and responsible for various strategic initiatives with ContinuitySA including the establishment of the As-set Management Division and BEE Commit-tee which has responsibility for implementation of BEE activities within the company. Currently, Bradley is the Manager of the Solutions Design Department at ContinuitySA and his primary role is to run the Pre-Sales, Solutions Design and Implementation activities of the company. Bradley is a member of the ContinuitySA Executive Committee (Exco) and is a Non-Executive Director of their Virtualisation and Hosted Services subsidiary, Triple4.

If you want to develop your organisations resilience then you need to attend the upcoming sessions in Johannesburg on the 20^th March 2013 and Cape Town on the 19^th March 2013.

Our guest speaker Eugene Taylor will cover some of the following topics:

• Standards: The World and the South  African position
• SANS/ ISO22301 – the rationale and what it is – explained in brief
• The framework needed to mature a BCMS to align with or be certified to SANS/ ISO22301
• The benefits of alignment and  certification to SANS/ ISO22301
• Other Resilience Discipline Supporting Standards and Publications (Local and International)
• What’s on the horizon with standards development that relate to SANS/ ISO22301 and Organisational Resilience in general

To register for the Johannesburg event click here or to register for the Cape Town event click here.

The theme for BCAW2013 is” Business Continuity – for the risks you can see and the ones you can’t”. With a world that is in constant change, organisations are continually confronted with an ever growing range of risks that they need to deal with.  The role of Business Continuity in helping organisations to become more resilient has never been greater than now.

Closely related to the discipline of Risk Management, Business Continuity enables an organisation to increase its capability to respond to any existing, emerging or unknown risk by focussing on mitigating the impact of any disruption on the most urgent and high priority activities.

The challenge organisations face is to fully understand the potential impact of any disruption, regardless of its scale or complexity. By looking within and across our organisations and by understanding what we need to have in place to keep our business running, we can ensure we are able to continue to operate whatever the scale or cause of the disruption. With the knowledge and strength of our continuity planning to support us, we can be more confident that we are able to face whatever the world challenges us with, including the risks we can see and the ones we can’t.

In support of BCAW2013, ContinuitySA has scheduled a host of events to keep the informative message going.

In both Johannesburg and Cape Town we are having talks on the International Business Continuity Standard, ISO22301 which will be presented by Eugene Taylor. We also have three informative webinars and we will also be having the BCI Good Practice Guidelines eLearning Course available as an in-house training programme, all of this free of charge.

For more detail on our event contact Cindy Bodenstein or please visit our Events page where you can find all the relevant information about these events.