1. BUSINESS CONTINUITY:
How to Keep the Grinch from Stealing Your
Business
Jack Hipple
Elliot Consulting
Predictive Failure Analysis Consultant
www.elliot-consulting.com
1

2. WHAT DID THE GRINCH DO?
2

3. STOLE CHRISTMAS WHEN WE
WERE NOT LOOKING
(UNPREPARED?)
3

4. HOW CAN WE AVOID THIS FROM
A QUALITY STANDPOINT?
HOW CAN WE BE BETTER
PREPARED?
4

5. WHAT’S OUR NORMAL VIEW OF
QUALITY?
5

6. WHAT’S OUR NORMAL VIEW OF
QUALITY?
 Knowledge of what the customer
wants/needs, how to delight
 Knowledge of how to fulfill those needs
and unspoken desires with products
and/or services
 Supply that service and/or product reliably
and consistently in a value added, win/win
environment
 Awareness of changes in needs
 Recycle and repeat
6

7. IS THAT ENOUGH?
 You are Home Depot or Lowes
 You have done all these things for all your
contractor customers
 There is a serious outbreak of Asian bird flu
 Some of your contractor customers close down
 ½ of your employees cannot report to work
 Your invoicing, accounting, and shipping/receiving
departments are decimated by illness and vacancy
 Combine this with a major hurricane in the Tampa
area at the same time
7

8. WHAT ARE ALL THE THINGS
INVOLVED?
 Manufacturing
 Sales
 IT
 Human Resources
 Environmental, Health and Safety
 Shipping and Receiving
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9. HYPOTHESIS:
QUALITY IS ALSO THE ABILITY
TO CONTINUOUSLY SUPPLY
YOUR CUSTOMERS’ NEEDS
NO MATTER WHAT!!
9

10. NO MATTER WHAT….
 Remember 2004? 4 Hurricanes in 6
weeks!
10

11. BUSINESS RESILIENCY
What comes to mind?
Physical Analogies?
11

12. LET’S DISTINGUISH BETWEEN---
BACKUP
CONTINUITY
RESILIENCY
12

13. LET’S DISTINGUISH
BETWEEN---
BACKUP
Retrieve information
Supply alternative
CONTINUITY
The “whatever” is there
for some time frame
to keep things going
RESILIENCY
Business survives as if nothing
happened under any circumstance
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14. Finance
Vulnerability
Assets and Risk
Business
Before After
Resiliency
IT
Communications
Customer
Care
14

15. VULERABILITY AND RISK
 What is your business and the quality of
its products vulnerable to? Have you
thought about all the possibilities?
 Weather
 Terrorism (physical, biological, chemical)
 Pandemics
 Supplier default due to the same things
 Customer default to the same things
 What is the economic impact?
 Hours, days, weeks, months, years?
15

16. WHAT IS YOUR BUSINESS
TOLERANCE?
16

17. WHAT’S THE RISK?
 Get real, but not doomsday (80/20)
 Longer than you think
 Short term vs. long term
 Can you be replaced?
 By whom?
 Are the affected at the same time or not?
 Physical, financial, structural
 What affects the most customers and the
future of the business
 Reliability of resources planned upon
17

18. COMMUNICATIONS AND DATA
STRATEGIES
 Employees
 Suppliers
 Customers
 Internet and communication systems
 Verizon story
 Data backup
 Not a different floor in the same hurricane prone
building!
 Cell phones OK until the power is off for several
days—then what?
18

19. CRISIS MANAGEMENT
 Dependent upon the type of
business
 Chemical manufacturing
 Knitting goods supplier
 Newspapers, TV, radio
 Who needs to know what, how,
when, and how soon
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20. INCIDENT COMMAND SYSTEM
 Originated with CA wildfire systems
 Restore facilities
 Assess, control, and minimize asset
damage
 Control the conditions
 Focal point for communication and
reporting
 Business report
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21. BUSINESS RECOVERY
 Grab and Go Box
 Immediate needs, contacts, and information
 Where to meet, assemble
 Who?
 What type of emergency?
 Duration of Emergency
 What if it’s months, not days?
 Communication system and protocol for
employees
 Pay and benefits?
21

22. IT RESTORATION
 Backup what?
 How?
 Redundancy?
 Where?
 To what level?
 How often checked?
 Weather
 Rain, wind, temperatures, salt water
22

23. RESILIENCY:
Before and After, Not Just During
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24. IT
BEFORE DURING AFTER
Survivability Backup Recovery
What are all the factors that might
affect?
Which are most important?
Is the plan tested?
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25. ASSETS
BEFORE DURING AFTER
Survivability Protection Damage
Analysis; Assets Assessment
Prioritization Contacts Claims
Are these up to date? Competition for
protection?
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26. Customer Care
BEFORE DURING AFTER
Who? When? Defined Contact
How? Re-contact
Alternative Contact Assess
Supplier Plan Partner Plan
Quality Impact? Check! Participate
26

27. © 2006 Elliot Consulting Services. All Rights Reserved. 27

28. AWARENESS
 It IS possible!
 Impact
 Short term, long term
 Equipment, suppliers, supplies,
information, customers, people, cash
 Before, during, after
 How long after?
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29. BUSINESS IMPACT ANALYSIS
 Translation of the risk into bottom line
calculations
 How much protection vs. cost
 A trade-off, but easy to err on the side
of optimism
29

30. A WRITTEN BUSINESS RESILIENCY
PLAN
 Write it down!
 Review it!
 Memorize the key points of it—you may
not have much time
 Terrorism evacuation notice for Tampa
 Second most dangerous port in the country
(Anhydrous ammonia for fertilizer
manufacturing in central Florida)
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31. TRAIN, PRACTICE, AND
REVIEW
 Practice, practice, practice!
 A fire is the wrong time to do a fire
drill
 Simulate different conditions
 Changes in political, health, and
terrorist threats
 Type, degree
31

32. A SUPPORTING TOOL:
PREDICTIVE FAILURE
ANALYSIS™
Note: Brief mention of this in 9/05
presentation made to section
32

33. HOW DO WE NORMALLY TRY TO THINK OF ALL
THE THINGS THAT MIGHT GO WRONG?
 Imagine
 Checklists
 Our own
 Industry
 Technical or business society
 Do these work adequately?
 Chemical plant releases, defective products,
unforeseen consequences
 Recycle and learn over time
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34. AN ALGORITHM TO ASSIST
 State the problem of concern
 My business backup plan works
 Invert the problem
 I don’t want my backup plan to work
 Exaggerate the inverted problem
 I NEVER want my backup plan to work
 How would I make that happen?
 What has to happen? What resources do I need?
 The list will always be longer than our fist list
 Prioritize, plan, act
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35. EXAMPLES
 Communication
 Backup supply
 Verizon Internet Example
 Personnel
 Customer service
 Billing and invoicing
35

36. Elliot Consulting Services
Business Survival Solutions
• Business Continuity and Disaster
Preparedness
• Strategic Business Development,
Sales, and Marketing
• Communications and Technology
solutions
• Business Process Outsourcing
© 2006 Elliot Consulting Services. All Rights Reserved. 36