Disaster Recovery Journal

If your morning routine always began with "L'eggo My Eggo", the great waffle shortage of 2009 probably left you missing that warm buttery and syrupy goodness.  Considering that Eggos account for nearly 70% of frozen waffles, the shortage was treated as nothing less than a national calamity.  With a flooded plant in Atlanta and broken bakery in Tennessee, Americans across the nation were left with empty freezers and a bad taste in their mouths when Kellogg Company was unable to produce some of their favorite breakfast foods.

A recent full-page ad in USA Today (see photo) prompted me to revisit the great waffle shortage of 2009, as it provides such a clear and tasty case for business continuity planning.  Heavy rains in October 2009 kicked-off Eggo's sabbatical from kitchen tables across the country.  One Kellogg spokesperson wrote "We are experiencing temporary Eggo supply constraints caused by a confluence of events [caused by] flooding at our Atlanta facility as well as equipment issues necessitating extensive enhancements and repairs at our largest waffle bakery facility."  As a result, Kellogg's added a banner to the top of their website that stated, "Some of your favorite Eggo products are out of stock nationally. We are working hard to fix this short-term issue".  Little did they know that "short-term" would actually become nine months.

Whether you want to call it inadequate planning or simply shear bad luck, the great waffle shortage of 2009 makes me think about business continuity and some key actions that may have kept our freezers stocked with Eggo waffles.  Still, as many of us can again find our favorite waffles at our local grocery, the following actions are applicable to a wide-variety of organizations and industries:

• Business impact analysis: A BIA looks at an organization's core business functions, personnel and technologies with the objective of identifying business continuity recovery objectives, interdependencies and the information necessary to define response and recovery strategies. For Eggo, it may have identified single points of failure in personnel and processes (such as baking and distribution) that would have allowed for a quicker return from their "short-term issue".
• Risk assessment: A risk assessment assists management in prioritizing the application of limited resources toward the mitigation of highly likely or potentially significant risks. In the case of Eggo waffles, it may have indicated that the Atlanta plant was in risk of flooding.
• Contingency plan: The goal of business continuity and tools such as the BIA and risk assessment are to develop strategies that enable business to continue in the event of a loss of facilities, technology, personnel, etc. For Eggo, additional plants and bakeries may not have been financially possible. However, pre-established agreements with other similar facilities could have allowed production to continue until Eggo was back to full capacity.
• Crisis communications: Given the outcomes of a BIA and risk assessment, a crisis communications strategy should be developed that allows for the rapid (yet appropriate) dissemination of information to key stakeholders and customers. Today, communication ranges from traditional email and phone calls to SMS messages and social media (as noted by Twitter user @cullenluv "We're outta Eggos!! It's a national tragedy!!"). Management should monitor these media and be prepared to respond quickly in order to verify information and control rumors. Overall, this enables good old-fashioned reputation management.

Problems ranging from flooding and equipment failure to data breach and pandemic will always affect normal business operations.  Proactive planning, however, can limit the threat and impact of these events in an effort to lessen damage to an organization's reputational, operational and financial well-being.

Avalution is a U.S. based consulting firm specializing in business continuity strategy design, development, implementation and long-term program maintenance.  For more information on Avalution Consulting, please visit our website at http://www.avalution.com or follow us on Twitter via @Avalution.