The Hindu Business Line : Can the market mania wean your staff from work?

STORY so far: Mumbai floods didn't spare my company's office, and I visit my colleagues there, more out of camaraderie than for any fire-fighting. Much to my relief, I find that the records and data are safe, owing to prudent preventive measures and providence. In contrast, though, I learn about the many firms that suffered huge losses because of a lack of business continuity plan or BCP.

Episode 109

Don't companies need to strengthen their BCP to ensure that it's business as usual despite calamities and disasters such as what hit the financial capital recently? That was the query I'd left you with last week and you'd agree that there couldn't be two views on the topic. And there are mails that reflect the same sentiment.

For instance, C. Ramesh writes in from Keeramangalam that the floods in Mumbai have demonstrated the importance of disaster recovery and business continuity. "The central network of State Bank of India, located in Mumbai, got affected and had an adverse impact not only in Mumbai but in other parts of the country as well," he points out. "Having a disaster recovery plan for any situation is certainly a good idea. One aspect of this is to include a backup solution that can help get the data information system back online. Such backup software should be designed to protect not just the company's information, but also the user-defined parameters and service utilities such as ATMs."

I learn from a posting on www.banknetindia.com that in the last few months major banks such as the SBI, OBC, BOM and Canara Bank have floated tenders to scale up their disaster recovery and business continuity systems. "Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines require banking and financial institutions to have a disaster recovery plan in place. However, Reserve Bank's study in April 2005 revealed that some banks were still in the process of framing a BCP," it states.

To investors and customers it is reassuring to see a statement like this: "BCPs have been put in place to take care of situations leading to any disruption in service. An independent Disaster Recovery Centre equipped with a configuration of hardware and software facilitating near real-time data replication with the main data centre has also been set up. Policies for classification, ownership, preservation and maintenance of confidentiality of data in electronic form have been framed. The Bank has an on-going system of review and re-engineering of business processes to suit the changing requirements of banking in the emerging scenario." Hey, where's this one from, you may ask? From a `private and confidential' filing before the BSE!

"It is only when a calamity or disaster of such magnitude strikes, we start thinking. Thus, when our planning is flawed, how can we ensure continuity?" asks J. Ravi Chander. "In India, it is probably only the conglomerates or big business houses that take these factors into account during inception. As for the remaining, these are not even at the back of their minds! When nearly 90 per cent of the industry chain is caught unaware, how can the remaining 10 per cent contribute? It takes proper planning, implementation and governance to implement a system that can ensure continuity." That's right. Ravi has given examples of preparedness prevailing in other countries: "In Japan where earthquakes occur often, and in the US where typhoons strike almost on a quarterly basis, life jumps back to normalcy rather than crawl back as happenshere."

What does it take to ensure continuity? Ravi has an answer: "If a pyramid is not strong there are only two things that can be done — either provide side reinforcements or start working from the foundation to make it stronger and give it some more life, though eventually it will crumble some day!" Means? "Business should be done with honest practices in every phase and there should be a body for imposition and scrutiny of such practices. Once a sound business practice has been ensured at the base level, focus should shift to the next level in the pyramid. This system will ensure that after-effects are mitigated and life jumps back to normalcy." That makes sense for a sustainable continuity!

"Hi Swati, rains have really put Mumbai out of gear," writes S. Kiran Kumar, Director of India Relations, to inform me about his client Sanovi Technologies, engaged in restoring and keeping the data flowing to major banks and manufacturing companies in Mumbai. I learn that the company in question specialises in disaster recovery and business continuity and that they have managed to recover data and migrated them to different locations, thus saving a lot of money for users.

The site www.sanovi.com informs that the company's key product Panaces, an `Enterprise Continuity Manager' software, enables customers to maintain and manage application continuity, and offers benefits such as "centralised control of enterprise-wide application continuity infrastructure, automated incident management, and real time monitoring of continuity metrics."

FIRST principles of business continuity are defined as: "Failover/ fallback management, Incident management, RPO/RTO (that is, recovery point and recovery time objectives) management, Security (replication) management, and Test exercises management." Thanks Kiran!

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During the week, I had fun meeting a bunch of CA students who seemed so glum that I chuckled and asked them, "If we can compare your course to a surgery, who do you think is the patient, and who, the surgeon?" Invariably, everybody present said that the hapless student was the patient on the operating table and that the Institute was the surgeon with questions as deadly as the scalpel!

Meanwhile, I had doodled on the board the operation theatre scene and we all had a good laugh. Then I told them we needed to look at the analogy again to set right the identification of characters. It's your course, the study materials, the notes and all that you lay on your study desk are akin to the patient on the table, I said. And you are the surgeon, I told the students. Whether the operation would be a success or not, depends on you, I said. During the surgery, you can't afford to think of anything else, so cut out distractions, I advised, promptly stealing away from the room!

*********

But what was not so funny was when I entered the office one afternoon, around 2 p.m., to find that no work was being done, though everybody seemed to be busy. One was on the phone, placing orders with his broker for a quick buy. Another stood reading the stock market pages of a newspaper unmindful of the work that had piled up on his table.

Two of my women colleagues were anxiously watching the TV and tracking the Net for the latest scrip prices, even as a telephone kept ringing. I stood there watching, angrily, and helplessly. You may say this is what's called the bull-run, but I have my reservations not only on the propriety of ignoring one's official duties to chase profits, but also on whether the direction that many small investors normally take will ever bear fruits. Send in your thoughts by Friday.

Swati_CA@hotmail.com

For archived episodes of this column click on: htpp://www.thehindubusinessline.com/nic/swati/index.htm

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