Cultural Aspects of Cross Border Mergers and Acquisitions
How Culture Impacts Cross Border Mergers and Acquisitions With the advent of globalization, it has become common for western multinationals to indulge in mergers and acquisitions with companies in the emerging markets. The process of entering those markets is usually through the Greenfield route that entails huge investments and takes time as the plants and […]
Open Systems Approach to Project Management in Organizations
When organizations have “flat” structures and consist of coalitions of people coming together with multiple loyalties, intersection of the organization with its environment being characterized by shifting boundaries; the informal nature of the work processes makes use of “open” systems approach towards organizations. The point to note here is that external environments both shape and […]
The 24/7 Interconnected World and Its Susceptibility to Sudden Collapse
The Perils of 24/7 Interconnectedness We live in a world that is not only integrated and interconnected largely but which also depends on complex supply chains across the world to deliver the goods and services that we need as part of our everyday existence. With globalization, the movement of goods, services, and people has reached […]
Factors Leading to Inventory Inefficiencies
In any company inventory management is one area that the managements always focus on when it comes to improving business efficiencies and cutting costs. An inventory reduction drive always yields results, which are visible and releases cash back into business. Does this mean that inventory management is inefficient? The answer can be a yes and […]
Backdrop to International Trade
Any student or professional wanting to understand more about Imports and Exports would have to understand the history and economic principles that have chartered the course of international trade to its current regime. In the backdrop of the countries economic policies and financial conditions such as its balance of payments situation, the governments formulate rules […]
Imagine that you are running a small scale organization and have been in business for over five years. You have managed to streamline all processes online including purchasing, payroll, invoicing and accounting etc. It is quite likely that you will not have paid any thought to taking backup of your data on systems. Even if you have done so for a while, you may not have invested on buying an external hard disk or drive to store the backup data. In such situation, if your hard disk crashes and your IT service provider tells you that he is not able to recover the data for you, you will have lost all of the valuable data concerning your business for the last five years and the loss is irreplaceable. This happens in many places including medium and large scale organizations too.
This is where the concept of disaster recovery comes into place. Any disaster can threaten your assets including systems. The causes may be natural, manmade or accidental. The consequences of loss can be disastrous for the business. To avoid such situations, one needs to adapt good Disaster Management practice in place.
The practice of Disaster Management and Recovery solutions has largely been adapted by the IT and technology companies which are susceptible to disasters and which have critical applications supporting their business as well as their customer’s businesses. However this concept is not limited to just the IT Companies alone.
Disaster Management and Disaster Recovery focus on drawing up a methodical and detailed plan that anticipates possible risks, disasters and events and outlines action first to protect the systems and assets and secondly to recover the functions as fast as possible. A good Disaster Management plan will include all products and systems related to technology including voice and data communication systems, software, data and hardware as well as the various IT hardware, software and databases, servers etc.
Businesses like banking, credit cards, airlines and other critical systems cannot afford any disruption of services as well as loss of data, the result of which can be disastrous for the businesses. All such companies are known to invest heavily into establishing and managing offshore data backup and recovery centers or at alternate sites. Such companies ensure that they have a fool proof data backup system that is functional at all times.
Often one finds that the cost of setting up a Disaster Recovery plan in place can be as expensive as setting up complete operations. However if the systems are highly critical to running the business like credit card companies and banks, they would have no option but to invest on the recovery centers.
At this juncture it is important to note that Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity are not one and the same. Though the objective is similar, there is a slight variation between the two. In the event of a disaster striking the site, Disaster Recovery aims at recovering assets, systems, data and other things and getting operations back to normal. However Business continuity focuses on getting the entire business operations or at least practical operations back on its feet in the event of a disaster.
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