Load shedding is back on the cards and with this comes the possibility that with your systems may not be able to handle the fluctuating levels of power as well as the sudden dips and spikes, which could ultimately lead to system and hardware failure.
The real question is are you ready for any possibility? According to Quintica business continuity is not about plans and lists; it is about individual engagement, risk assessment and the ability of the business to communicate the right information across the organisation to ensure the lowest possible downtime and full recovery in the event of a disaster.
“People within businesses expect that you have a plan in place to ensure that when the lights go out they are either able to keep on working, or simply go home,” states Kerry Evans, managing director Africa at Quintica. “This is no different for when systems fail, teams want to know that they can continue to deliver and remain productive, no matter where they are.”
According to Evans it is for this reason that Quintica continues to partner with business continuity experts Sungard, with its Assurance portfolio. The solution enables a business to develop and create a plan that takes into consideration threat mitigation right through to business recovery, without having to train or educate entire teams.
Assurance also creates actionable and automated plans against requisite compliance regulations. Making use of an intuitive user interface, the software pools actions and data from its user-centred design and dynamic repository, which is continually and consistently being validated on the back of the input of over 2 000 customers.
“Management don’t want to know what things are down they want to know when things will be back up. With the use of dashboards they can, at any moment, look at performance indicators as well as visual business continuity plans that the business has in place. As the plans are dynamic you can either tap into a template or create your own, which will then change and adapt as your business does, without the requirement for manual and cumbersome user intervention,” she adds.
With role-based security woven into the very fabric of the plans, a company can literally hand over the responsibility of its disaster recovery, IT, business continuity and even crisis management planning to Sungard Assurance.
With the visual aspect of the software you can also see exactly, on a map, how your business is being affected. In addition with the option for emergency notification, you can rest easy that the people you need notified are in the system and that stakeholders are notified in any crisis, it also boasts the ability of in-line reporting and what-if scenario mapping.
Assurance can be deployed on a software as a service (SaaS) model which means that no matter the size of your business you can tap into its benefits without huge CAPEX investments.
With the inclusion of its cloud middleware integration you can automate updates from the HR, IT and corporate data and plans. This is critical to ensure an all-inclusive and overarching plan is developed. It is also available across multiple platforms and as a result is a perfect companion to a BYOD (bring your own device) strategy, should your business deploy one.
“When faced with a disaster, you need to follow the next best actions for your business. Assurance allows you to do this, but in real time helps deploy up-to-the-minute insights into what is facing your business at that moment. In the past if your business continuity plan wasn’t printed out and stored in a vault offsite, all your efforts were in vain. With Assurance all of this has changed and you are assured your business will keep going even when the lights are out,” ends Evans.