April 2008 Archives
Last month, several of us from Administrative Information Services (AIS) attended the Disaster Recovery Journal (DRJ) Spring World Conference in Orlando. I have had the opportunity to attend this conference for the past several years, and thought I would share some of the information we were able to bring back.
First, I would like to mention that the conference draws about 1300 business continuity professionals from various industries. Over the past few years, I expected the number of higher education institutions to attend this event to increase, especially with all the recent events in the news. I was disappointed again this year, that the number of higher education attendees was a low turnout. Here's hoping to a better year next year!
Our group had an opportunity to sit in many great sessions. We sat in on topics that included IT strategies for recovery, BIA, Risk Assessment, Risk Management and Global Warming - yes, a wonderful speaker talked about how business continuity professionals will need to deal with risks and vulnerabilities that will be/and is caused by global warming.
The greatest piece of knowledge I was able to bring back from the conference is that the process we are developing at Penn State for business continuity planning is inline with the process that large corporations are using. It provided validation to the process we are rolling out across the University, which gives our team more confidence in pushing ahead and continue to make progress.
It was interesting to hear that corporations still struggle with the issues of getting executive support for business continuity planning. Though, it is getting easier with all the events that have occurred across the world, executive management still does not see the value in using the plans for more than just recovery. They have a hard time using this information for strategic planning and understanding the breadth of their operations. Some of the corporations that are successful in planning, have the executive support and they seem to understand the importance of not only having these plans, but actually using them to their fullest potential.
My final observation is that, corporations that believe in the process give authority to the business continuity professionals. They create a Business Continuity Office, which has the responsibility and authority to oversee all the planning efforts for the Enterprise. As Penn State matures in Business Continuity Planning, the process will be more accepted into the culture. How can Penn State ensure that critical functions will be there for students/faculty/staff will be there when they need them? Planning, planning, planning....
