Expectations are higher today than ever before, too. CEOs expect recovery planners to look beyond IT recovery to enterprise-wide response and recovery solutions. As you struggle to do more with less, you need state-of-the-art tools. Your trusty word processing software isn't good enough. Yes, word processors are familiar tools. Yes, a word processing application is the most convenient way to write procedures, and yes, everybody already has Word or WordPerfect.
Those aren't good enough reasons to ignore specialized BCP software tools that can supplement your comfortable word processing habit. The best BCP software takes advantage of the strengths of word processing applications for writing procedures and tweaking the formatting of plans, while providing special-purpose tools for other planning tasks.
Think about it - these days we have all kinds of specialized software to make tasks at work and at home faster and easier. Every day we use software to reduce effort while improving productivity. Software tools help us organize data efficiently, then manipulate and analyze the data. BCP software brings with it all these advantages inherent to using any software tool, as well as special advantages uniquely suited to the planning world.
Take advantage of the expertise of veteran planners. BCP software is developed by a motivated team of DR consultants. These consultants bring their real-world point of view to the software development process. The result? An application that guides you through the process of planning. Planning expertise is built into the software. Features can include on-screen guidance; ready-made resource tables that can be customized for any business; and hundreds of model documents and proven procedures (including platform restoration scripts) that can be customized with your favorite word processor or used 'as is'. The software should include model plan templates that you can adapt for your enterprise.
Maintain a disciplined approach to planning. BCP software that integrates all the analysis, planning, and testing functions in a single package makes it easy to impose order on the planning process. The structure of the process is already established for you, but the software doesn't impose limits on your ability to create unique plans suited to your business' exceptional needs.
- Fully-integrated Business Impact Analysis (BIA) functionality should include hundreds of ready-made Business Impact Analysis questions to help you assess the financial impact of various events over time. The ability to create new questions tailored to your special concerns means that there are no limits on what you can analyze and project. Operations staff can answer BIA survey questions on-line, and their answers go directly into the planning database. The latest, greatest BIA data is always available to planners. Charts and graphs help you analyze survey results in new ways, and help you convince other decision-makers of the potential impact of business interruptions.
- Standard resource tables and dozens of pick lists provide a good starting point for detailing recovery requirements for business units and functions within your enterprise. Tools that let you add new fields and multiple pick lists to standard tables, change field properties, and create any number of custom tables liberate you from one-size-fits-all thinking.
- The availability of model report templates, procedures and plans means you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You can focus your energies on documenting the unique aspects of your business.
- A strong testing module is invaluable when it's time to validate your plan and assess dependencies among your response and recovery procedures. When the testing module is fully integrated with all the other planning tools, you can manipulate recovery timelines based on test results, optimizing your plan.
Support a lone planner or a multitude. BCP software should adapt to the way you like to work. The ideal BCP application makes it equally easy to work alone or as part of a team. If you work alone, the software can run locally on your desktop or laptop. If planning is a distributed process in your enterprise, then your tool of choice will also allow multiple planners to access a single database over a LAN, WAN, or the Internet.
Coordinate the efforts of multiple planners. If you manage a team of planners, or distribute planning responsibilities among operations staff, you'll appreciate the project management and auditing tools provided by some BCP software. You can limit individual users and groups to seeing only their own planning data and recovery procedures. You can monitor who changes what in the planning database. Document control ensures that only one planner at a time has custody of a document. As long as a document is 'checked out' to one planner, others can read it, but not change it. There's no searching for the latest 'official' version of a procedure - the official version is always secure in the planning database.
Integrate data from many sources into a single database. There's no substitute for modern BCP software when it comes to pulling together recovery resource data from a variety of sources. The latest client-server software lets you access a single planning database in the office over a LAN or WAN, and from home (and even on the road) using a Web browser and the Internet. Tools for importing data let you update the planning database quickly and easily with data from Human Resources, Purchasing, and Production departments. Tools for exporting data let you change and update information in back-office databases. You can even gather data from far-flung field offices using remote data collection tools, then seamlessly integrate the data with the central planning database.
Interpret the data once you've gathered it. Gathering the resource data is only half the job. Once the recovery data is in your planning database, BCP software's sophisticated relational database utilities work behind the scenes. You can filter and manipulate the data to serve your needs.
Create custom reports using familiar point-and-click techniques. If you select a BCP software with an integrated wizard-driven report creation tool, you can generate reports that include or exclude data based on the business units or locations to which it applies. You can also include or exclude data based on the values in the fields you specify. Use roll-up reports to pull together data across business unit boundaries, giving you the 'big picture' on minimum acceptable recovery resources and on system/application dependencies. As a plus, you can report on BCP security profiles and other system settings. You can even use the reporting tool to document an audit trail for the planning process itself.
Integrate existing procedures with new documents. In addition to BIA results and resource data, the planning database you build with some BCP software include response and recovery procedures, maps, and any other documents that recovery teams might want at their fingertips.
Most BCP software can handle documents created with any of the popular word processing tools, so you can easily add existing documents to your planning database. Planners for individual business units and functions can maintain unique procedures, or they can copy and adapt model procedures supplied with the software. When appropriate, business units can share procedures developed in-house.
Plan for multiple scenarios, each with its own recovery time windows. Of course you must plan for the worst-case scenario, but lesser business disruptions are more likely to occur. The most flexible BCP software lets you plan for multiple scenarios, so your teams will know what to do if real disaster strikes, and they'll know what response is appropriate when smaller scale problems arise. Each business unit and function can have its own response and recovery timelines for each scenario. That way, you can match a proportional response with each disruption you anticipate. (This is especially useful if haz-mat concerns are an issue at your site.)
Pull it all together in up-to-the-minute plans. The most convenient BCP software lets you use drag-and-drop techniques to create any number of reusable plan templates. Each template is an outline that lists all the reports, resource data, recovery procedures and other documents needed in the plan. To generate a plan, you select a plan template and specify the type of output you need. The software accesses the planning database to copy into the plan the most current information and latest version of the documents called for by the template outline. The software combines the data and documents into a plan that reflects today's recovery needs. The structure of your business changes tomorrow? No sweat. Simply change the relationships between the business units and functions in your planning database and re-generate the plan.
Create as many plans as you need and format them any way you want. When all your analysis and planning data, and response and recovery documents are in one database, it is easy to create multiple plans for multiple teams. These plans will probably be circulated widely, and may even have to satisfy outside auditors. Remember that the format and arrangement of information in plans affects how well readers understand the plans. And it may not be fair, but plans with a professional appearance are more highly regarded than plans that look carelessly assembled. This is where you can take advantage of the strengths of word processing software.
The most convenient BCP software can generate plans in file formats compatible with popular word processing applications, which you can use to fine-tune the appearance of the plans.
Get planning information into the hands of the people who need it. A brilliant plan is worthless if it's not accessible to the people who need it. BCP software supports multiple methods of disseminating plans: as piles of paper, as word processor and HTML files on an intranet, and as HTML files on a remote Web server. BCP software can support response and recovery efforts at time of disaster, too. Run the software on a laptop and use the testing module to monitor recovery efforts in real time.
Be ready to cope with change'lots of change. A few years ago only a handful of businesses had to worry about recovering Web-based sales tools and on-line order departments. Now, all kinds of businesses have a presence on the Net. Next year (or maybe even tomorrow) visionaries will imagine new ways to do e-business. That's good news for the economy and for the corporate bottom line, but bad news for DR professionals who aren't prepared to cope with change.
It's almost impossible to overstate the advantages of using BCP software to keep up with change. With most BCP software you build a planning database that serves as the foundation of planning efforts today and tomorrow. Because you can import data from other software applications, re-typing data is minimized. When your business changes, you don't have to scrap your old plans and start from scratch. Simply update your planning database to reflect the changes in your enterprise and re-generate the plans. This evolutionary approach to planning allows you to concentrate on the what's new, and re-use stable data and procedures.
Get the most out of every minute. If you're like most DR professionals, your work days are already more than hectic. It's become a clich' to say 'work smarter, not harder'. The truth is, most DR professionals can plan on working smarter and harder next year, and the next year, and the year after that'. Why not use the software tools available to maximize the results you achieve every day?
Minimize cost of ownership. Of course, when selecting BCP software, you'll look for the same characteristics you'd look for when selecting any other important application. You want to select software that is reliable and easy to use. If you want to be happy with your purchase years from now, consider whether the software was developed by a company with a proven track record.
Look for a stable company with:
- many years of planning experience
- an experienced technical support team
- convenient regional training sessions
This issue of the Journal is a good place to start your search for a BCP package to match your planning needs. The BCP software round up in this issue summarizes the features of many vendors' BCP products. If you've glanced at the end of the article you've seen that I work for SunGard Planning Solutions. However, that does not mean our products are your only option. I encourage you to invest a little time in assessing the tools available. You can get demos of many of the BCP packages on CD or the Net. When you find one that's right for you, the payoff can be significant savings of time and money as you upgrade your ability to cope with change.
Joyce Kern is Product Development Manager at SunGard Planning Solutions in Wayne, PA, USA (www.drexperts.com).
