In terms of business we need to be stepping up our disaster recovery and business continuity plans to be able to cope with all manner of disruptive situations. Not just for the possibility that we may be at the centre of such a devastating occurance, but also for when we may be also affected on the periphery. Indeed the west coast of America was bracing itself for the fall out of last week’s earthquake and tsunami as the ripples were felt along the coast. Luckily the anticipated flooding did not occur, but I am sure that many west coast corporations were dusting off their business continuity plans just in case.

For those organisations taking another look at their DR plans, it would be prudent not to skim over the all important telecoms continuity plans. Had buidlings needed to be evacuated, how many employees would have been able to continue working from home or other safe location, including being able to have their incoming calls re-directed?

When employees are safe, the next big role for an organisation found in disruptive circumstances is to keep on working. As the clean up operation begins across Japan, many organisations will be keen to get back to normal as soon as they can to protect their business and their country’s economy in order to fund the rebuilding of both lives, towns and infrastructure. They must support the survivors who have no choice but to rebuild their homes, restart their lives and return to work.

“Aon has created a stand alone insurance policy to reimburse companies for wages, fixed costs and extra expenses if they are unable to access their buildings due to government action.”

Hats off to Aon for identifying the gap in the market here as many generic insurance policies/ business interruption policies do not cover specific pandemic viruses, indeed they only usually cover costs caused by physical damage or ‘notifiable diseases’ which H1N1 does not always qualify for.

The new product from Aon is believed to be the first of its kind available to all kinds of industry, though the general target is for Retail, Transport and Manufacturing where employees would be hard pushed to fulfill their roles from home. I’m sure many of the 100 shops in Princes Street, Edinburgh which suffered a power cut during peak business hours this week, would now be very keen to take up such a policy…

Continous working much better than re-couping costs

It’s great that these industries can now be protected for office/ building closure in this way, however for those industries such as service and finance there is always the option for employees to work from home or another remote office or location and I believe that these types of organisations should be focusing their attention far more on continuing to operate effectively as a business, rather than relying on insurance policies to cover any unexpected costs as a result of a building closure. After all, who wants to pay out twice or three times following a disruption? First for an insurance policy, then for the costs which are not covered by the policy, and finally for a more effective strategy which enables employees to continue working through a disruption whereby your costs are limited from the start.

If organisations had a seamless way of working, regardless of whether their premises could be accessed or not, there would be no need for reliance on such insurance policies to cover unexpected costs.

Voice gets forgotten

Yet what amazes me is that all these technologies are data based and voice is getting woefully forgotten, or should I say, taken for granted. There was no mention of IP voice or indeed any need for innovation or change in the voice arena. I think this is a classic case of looking so intently in one direction that you forget to see what is happening in the other. Whilst companies toy with the idea of saving costs through cloud computing, are they seeking to minimise costs through their telecoms services, exploiting more than just the efficiencies of low cost lines and minutes?

After all where is the benefit in being able to access your applications, data and corporate network  from any location if you can’t actually take your calls (with guaranteed quality) from your customers in the same seamless manner when the technology is available to do it? Maybe we need to be promoting this as ‘cloud telephony’ and its profile should get raised…

Save Money and Keep on Serving

If companies want to achieve cost efficiency, 24×7 operational capability and seamless service for their customers then an integrated approach to both IT and voice is needed and appropriate resilience employed for both (which unfortuately VOIP does not provide).

The only way to achieve both is to implement a resilient PSTN service which can cope with all eventualities and be as flexible as virtualisation of your data services.

Innovative Customer Service:

Graham Chick, CEO at GemaTech had 28 half hour meetings over 2 days with individuals who were looking to find new, innovative ways to improve customer service. An enthusiasm for embracing technology enabling companies to target their customers effectively through many types of media was very evident. Many companies across sectors such as Travel and Tourism and the public entertainment sectors now have established loyalty databases which they are keen to leverage.

Routes to Market:

It was encouraging to find that many companies are widening their vision in terms of their marketing and customer service strategies to embrace evolving communication methods such as using Twitter, Facebook and other social media channels to add value and to increase customer retention. GemaTech has been promoting this relatively untapped route to market through its Rapid Call Out solution and the market is responding positively to such developments.

Ownership Costs:

The applications for a system which can target market segments quickly and cost-effectively came across clearly from delegates who saw the benefits of being able to target their markets any way they wanted, e.g. to under 25’s, those who repeat purchase certain products or services, and indeed even companies who want to be able to contact their suppliers or distributors with promotional information. What impressed them also was the low annual cost of being able to communicate with their customers, suppliers or even employees through multiple channels.

Finding the most effective way of reacting to target market demands is often seen as looking for gold dust, yet from what we are hearing, companies know what they want and are actively looking for flexible, cost-effective and targeted solutions offering more than just SMS text capabilities.

With postal strikes leaving us unsure about when we should expect to recieve our mail, it could cause problems in terms of people receiving letters from their GP surgeries about when and where they need to be vaccinated, leading to appointment chaos and many people missing their slot.

The alternative is to ring around every person to let them know when they need to be vaccinated. This is clearly a very time consuming job and may not always be effective in reaching the intended recipient. If GP surgeries were able to send out a tailored recorded message to individuals, SMS text or email, or indeed a combination of all three, they are far more likely to be able to reach each person and it would be less time consuming for an already over stretched Health Service…

What message this sends me is that we cannot underestimate what this virus can do to us, our children and our colleagues. If disruption to our routines and work is worse than we are expecting then we could see a slow down in economic activity over the winter months as key employees, customer service staff, sales staff etc. are confined to their beds or looking after sick relatives for a week or more. I don’t necessarily see that the UK will come to a stand still but I just think that everything we do will take a lot longer, meaning that contract deadlines could be missed, deliveries could be delayed and the entire supply chain system could experience a slow down, causing any number of problems.

This disruption could be minimised by taking the right precautions as I have alluded to in previous blogs, and feedback I am getting from the market is that people are starting to take pandemic planning more seriously which is a good sign. I will keep you posted with any further developments I come across…

Business Benefits include:

Control: The customer is in complete control of adding, deleting and amending recipient data as well as issuing messages via any channel of communication.

Simple: Through a secure web based interface, any member of the customer’s organisation with the appropriate authority can issue any number of messages via any selected channel of communication.

Flexible: Through GemaTech’s innovative tagging system, messages can be targeted to individuals or groups of individuals via a prioritised list of communication channels at any time of day or night.

Resilient: Any delay through the network is minimised as the RCO uses higher priority message delivery channels. Resilience is also insured as data is stored, protected and sent through GemaTech’s 4 geographically disparate and secure data centres.

Remote: The system can be activated from literally anywhere in the world via a secure web browser on a mobile phone, PDA, laptop or stand-alone PC.

Automatic: If required, the RCO system can be triggered by any number of means including telephone, web, email, IM, fax, SMS, alarms e.g. fire or intruder, triggers such as temperature sensors, API and Twitter.

For further information email k.jones@gematech.com

Unlike call recovery trucks (provided by telecoms carriers like BT) the PRU gets your calls re-routed quickly and your organisation back up and running fast. The PRU is a unique and affordable emergency call recovery solution that helps you maximise the limited time and financial resources at your disposal to deliver trusted telecoms resilience to your organisation.

Although the Portable Recovery Unit is only activated when you need it, because all your call plans are held securely in GemaTech’s data centres we provide you with the ability to constantly amend and test your call re-routing plans without disrupting your normal incoming calls.

To find out more about the PRU visit our dedicated site at: http://www.gematech.com/pru/

The show is aimed at people with a role in operations, procurement, training, recruitment and emergency planning within:

• Police
• Fire & Rescue Services
• Ambulance Services
• Maritime and Coastguard Agency
• MoD
• NGOs and the Voluntary sector
• Local Government Authorities
• Local/Regional Resilience Teams
• Utility Operators
• Transport including Airports and Port Authorities
• Government Agencies
• Health Authorities and Primary Care Trusts
• Commercial Businesses
• Embassies

If you are coming to the show be sure to let us know or have a chat with us at our stand. If you are not already registered and would like to attend you can sign up here:

http://www.theemergencyservicesshow2009.com/

As Gold Sponsor GemaTech’s CEO Graham Chick presented alongside other industry experts, focusing on the subject of Flexible Working as the only reliable solution for business continuity, including case studies on how telecoms recovery technology has proved successful for a number of financial institutions.

Other speakers included; Richard Maddison, Deputy Head of Business Continuity at the Financial Services Authority, Martin Jordan, Principal Advisor of IT Security at KPMG and Steve Clements, Head of Crisis and Business Continuity Management for the Lloyds Banking Group.

Read my critique of the event and what I really thought of the presentations and conference on my blog.

Author: Karen Jones