June is National Hurricane Preparedness Month and serves as a reminder for private clubs in areas susceptible to this type of natural disaster to be prepared. Other natural disasters, including fires, floods and earthquakes can have devastating effects on daily business operations. In addition, man-made disasters, terrorism, and power outages can also cause major or minor interruptions in business and service.
Any interruption in service in the private club industry can have negative effects on operations, employees and members alike. Therefore, it is crucial to have a business continuity plan and disaster recovery plan in place at the club.
A business continuity plan includes planning for non-IT related aspects of operations, such as key personnel, facilities, crisis communication and reputation protection, as well as IT issues, including resumption of applications, data, hardware, communications, and other IT infrastructures.
NCA’s publication, Disaster Planning & Recovery, is designed to assist club officials in assessing their club’s level of disaster preparedness and in developing a comprehensive disaster recovery plan. It contains step-by-step advice on how to organize a disaster plan and respond to specific types of disasters.
Every club should have a well thought out disaster plan tailored to meet any potential disaster or emergency that might occur. Disasters can be classified as either natural or man-made and either sudden or anticipated. Disasters also vary in scope, but with a solid disaster plan in force, the worst results of disasters can be averted or lessened.
A disaster plan should be ready to implement immediately, and it should also be updated at least annually to reflect changes in personnel or equipment. Once developed, it is important to test the disaster plan with sufficient frequency by conducting regular disaster simulation exercises that will determine whether the plan works and is sufficient to handle any event that could disrupt operations.
A critical element in organizing a disaster plan is a business impact analysis, which should show how much revenue could be lost to the club in the event of certain kinds of disaster. Once assembled and presented, this preliminary analysis can help the board to see the importance of spending time and money to produce a comprehensive disaster plan to ameliorate the effects of certain hypothetical disasters.
One growing area of concern in business continuity and disaster planning is changing technology. The rise in the popularity of social networking and more mobile devices presents new challenges to network security, disaster planning and business continuity plans. Things like company-issued Blackberries and other smart phones as well as company social media profiles on sites such as Linkedin or Facebook need to be considered when drafting a business continuity plan.
A 2009 AT&T Business Continuity Study surveyed IT executives from companies throughout the United States that have at least $25 million in annual revenue to get their views on disaster planning and business continuity trends.
Some of the key findings were:
- Sixty-five percent said that their companies will be investing in new technologies for 2009, including new equipment and a variety of software, storage and security upgrades.
- Companies with business continuity plans in place are significantly more likely than those without plans to anticipate budget increases for technology spending.
- Sixty-seven percent said that wireless network capabilities are part of their business continuity plan. Forty-six percent stated that mobile devices play a major role in their plan’s considerations.
- Three out of four executives surveyed are concerned about the increased use of social networking capabilities’ potential impact on network security.
- One-third of companies surveyed have used their business continuity plan that is in place. Nationally, companies are most likely to invoke their business continuity plan due to extreme weather (25 percent) or power outages at facilities (19 percent). Companies in areas where hurricanes occur were more likely to have invoked their plans.
- Nearly 74 percent of businesses surveyed establish recovery times for their key business processes, an indication that businesses understand not only is it important to have a plan in place, but that plan needs to identify goals and expectations for recovery should it be invoked. In the event of a natural or man-made disaster, these companies have special arrangements for communicating with key executives spanning voice, e-mail and text messaging.
Small businesses need to be just as prepared—or even more so—than large companies. Resources and business continuity planning tools are available from the Institute for Business and Home Safety through the program, “Open for Business.” http://www.disastersafety.org/text.asp?id=commlines. In addition, the United States Small Business Administration (www.sba.gov) and the National Federation of Independent Business (www.nfib.com) recognize the importance of disaster and business continuity planning and offer articles and resources on their Web sites for use by small businesses.
It is important for connectivity to not be disrupted in today’s business environment, which is why business continuity planning and disaster recovery efforts are so vital in clubs.