Can you afford to manage a business without knowing the risks? Of course not. But suppose you decide – for whatever reason – to not take risk management very seriously. What could happen? Naturally, your business could fail; that’s probably the worst case. Your business could be acquired by someone else who extracts the worthwhile… Continue reading Operational Risk Management: Don’t Run Your Business Without It

Operational risk management (ORM) is more than knowing how to evaluate risk. It is a continuously-repeated process which includes risk assessment, risk decision-making, and implementation of risk controls that result in risk acceptance, mitigation, or avoidance. ORM is more complicated than a basic definition. According to the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP), operational risk… Continue reading The Business Value of Operational Risk Management

The situation was dire. Their colleagues had been taken hostage by an angry crowd of protesters. And, just when they thought they could take a breath and collect their thoughts, things got worse. Within minutes several Molotov cocktails had set their building ablaze. Luckily for this group of international development professionals, the disaster they were… Continue reading 5 Ways to Make Your Training Program the Most Sought-After in Your Organization

We’ve always done it that way.” The periodic occurrence of these words within a business continuity management program (BCMP) should prompt program stakeholders to consider whether an opportunity for improvement is presenting itself. Business continuity, like all professions, requires constant process improvement. Organizations must not allow the longevity of the profession’s core activities and artifacts… Continue reading BC Process Optimization: Improve, or Else

In late 2005, I attended an executive briefing about earthquake risk in Southern California. The presenter was Dr. Lucy Jones, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and a visiting research associate at the Seismological Laboratory of Caltech. Dr. Jones described the potentially widespread devastation that would result from a major earthquake in the region.… Continue reading Data Center Risk in Earthquake Country: What’s a Business Continuity Planner to Do?

It’s no secret that our climate has become increasingly volatile, producing extreme weather events more frequently and with higher intensity. When severe weather strikes, its impact can threaten the safety, functionality, and continuity of homes, businesses, and infrastructure. Because of this, urban areas now face greater exposure and vulnerability. Currently, 80 percent of the U.S.… Continue reading Disaster Risk Planning: How to Adapt to a Changing Climate

If you’ve ever heard the adage “fail to plan, and you plan to fail,” then you have a rudimentary understanding of where the FAA failed in the air traffic control disruption experienced by Chicago airports. FAA officials should have planned for their systems to fail. Which means they have failed on both sides of the… Continue reading How Business Continuity Planning Could have Prevented the Chicago Air Traffic Control Disruption

Adam C. Wasylyshyn is currently senior vice president and chief information officer of Watts Water Technologies. Wasylyshyn has more than 23 years of progressive executive experience within technology and operations management, profit improvements, and productivity initiatives at industry leading health care, high technology and manufacturing companies. He has an MBA in global management and MS… Continue reading Q + A: An Interview with Adam C. Wasylyshyn of Watts Water Technologies

With all the buzz around data protection and cloud, something seems to have been lost in space. We talk about instant, incremental, and online backups as well as data deduplication, but the focus needs to be on recovery. Doesn’t it? All of the fancy bells and whistles cited in today’s back-up products mean little if… Continue reading Four Steps and ‘Plan B’ to Assure you are not the Single Point of Failure in a Disaster

At one point your organization is going to experience some form of data loss. This can occur in a number of ways, whether through some sort of hardware or software failure, malware on your network, or an event out of your control such as a natural disaster, extended power outage, or perhaps something more sinister.… Continue reading Survey Highlights Disconnect Between Disaster Recovery Strategy, Plans, and Real-Time Client Preparedness