Business Continuity Planning

There is an expectation on IT Departments that business critical systems must be kept running no matter what the scenario is.  So do you fancy telling the Chief Exec that your business couldn't take any orders for a few days because a key system was down and you hadn't planned for such eventuality?

Most businesses have a business continuity plan which may cover all manors of threats and disasters. Beside the standard physical attacks, such as fire, or software virus threats, is yours actually going to protect you if say 30% to 50% of your IT team are taken ill at once due to a pandemic flu outbreak? 

MSMs Business Continuity Planning Services

MSM's application management services provide support of bespoke software and databases.  We can provide first, second or third line cover, alongside your team, as an escalation route or instead of your team.  We provide guaranteed Service Level Agreements (SLAs) up to 24×7 even if we didn't write the software.  Our SLAs are flexible to suit business and system needs.

We can provide support on a permanent contract or just set up a temporary arrangement during times when your existing support arrangements can't cope.  We'll be here to help whether your in house team or another supplier are letting you down.

Preparing for threats

To minimise cost to you we provide all support services on a cost plus basis.  We spend a few days learning and documenting your software, ideally before you need the support.  Assuming you have been proactive and we've done our 'health check', so are familiar with your systems and remote access, you can invoke your SLA at any time, in accordance with your BCP.  We charge a modest retainer to maintain our team's familiarity, until you need us.  If the risk subsides, you can cancel the contract without penalty.

Is your system at risk right now?

If your business critical applications are currently in a state of unexpected downtime which is costing valuable income then our processes are geared up for the worst case:

• a business critical system
• which has no documentation
• and no team available to support it
• which has just broken.

We can typically get your business back up and running quickly and then retrospectively learn the application with our health check process to then provide ongoing support.

The risk of a flu pandemic hasn't dissipated even though the media coverage has reduced considerably. The World Health Organisation predicts 1 in 3 of the population of the northern hemisphere could suffer Swine Flu at some time in the 2009 pandemic and the current level of alert is set at phase 5.

Our own BCP plans for up to 60% staff absence at the peak of a pandemic, despite which we plan to provide support services as usual.  Our BCP was invoked on 30 April 2009 in response to the WHO raising the Pandemic Alert level to "Phase 5".

Further Reading
Enquire about support of your systems before the event.