Wipro’s mindful of business continuity

After the terror attack on November 26, 2008, business continuity management (BCM) seems to have become the buzzword in the Indian industry.

BCM is a key leadership responsibility and needs to be integrated into the strategic plans of a business. Earlier, global players aspiring to do business with India would enquire about BCM plans as part of their business assessment exercise, but they invariably did not verify the same.

Now, global players seek independent third party assessment of the organisation’s BCM plans.

Consequently, BCM has become a strategic imperative for Indian corporates wanting to do business in the global arena. One cannot start building up a defence force when the enemy attacks; one needs to be prepared all the time.

Wipro Technologies has business operations spanning several countries across the globe; it has facilities including sales offices and development centres in countries like the US, UK and Japan besides India. Wipro is one of the first organisations to achieve a BS 7799-2: 2002 certification, a standard defined and released in 2003.

In accordance with this framework, it has defined a detailed Disaster Recovery (DR) policy that addresses critical aspects of physical security, information security and business continuity planning (BCP).

The DR strategy of Wipro is focused on protecting critical business systems and processes across its various locations. The BCP involves developing, testing and maintaining a plan for recovery of critical IT systems in an emergency.

It also involves managing availability of employees and ensuring flow of processes and operations in the face of disaster.

Wipro’s BCP
Wipro’s BCP framework ensures complete readiness to carry out an impact analysis and risk assessment to understand the scope of recovery and restoration of valuable data. This includes preventive measures such as back-up of vital technical data, server configurations etc besides information needed for critical business processes at remote sites.

Each strategic centre worldwide has a chief recovery officer, and a damage assessment and emergency response team to protect and recover critical data. Specialists for critical functions and processes are identified and assigned specific tasks.

They are provided with visas to travel across the world in case of emergencies. Wipro has an online project/configuration team that can move data seamlessly across locations. The aim is quick response, analysis and minimisation of impact, and preventing recurrence through well-defined policies and procedures.

Wipro’s DR plan
Wipro’s DR site, located at Chennai, is fully equipped to run operations in case disaster strikes at other locations. This site also serves as a remote storage facility with fireproof storage areas. The information and data generated at its worldwide locations is replicated at this site.  

The operations of any strategic centre across the world can be restarted, from this site, within 4 hours of shutdown. Once in 6 months a mock DR restoration drill is carried out to check preparedness of the DR infrastructure, where all systems and process at locations around the world are shut down for a whole week and operations are run from the DR site. 

The BCP standard
BS 25999-1: In December 2006, the British Standards Institution (BSI) released a new independent standard for BCP best practices, BS 25999-1. Prior to the introduction of BS 25999, BCP professionals relied on BSI information security standard BS 7799, which only peripherally addressed BCP to improve an organisation’s information security compliance.

BS 25999’s applicability extends to organisations of all types, sizes, and missions whether governmental or private, profit or non-profit, large or small sector. In 2007, the BSI published the second part, BS 25999-2 ‘Specifications for Business Continuity Management’, that specifies requirements for implementing, operating and improving a documented Business Continuity Management System (BCMS).

The Indian reality
A BCM survey conducted by a leading global management consultancy revealed that most Indian firms remained inadequately prepared to face any major disruption. Almost 80% of respondent organisations did not have a documented BCM plan. And of the respondents that had BCM plans, two-thirds had never tested their plans.

We need to recognise that India is now a global player and global businesses are not interested in getting into a business relationship unless the organisation is prepared for a disaster. Also, several global firms that have a nagging fear of a war breaking out in India, need reassurance with regard to the continuity and availability of their business associations in India. After 26/11, does the Indian industry have an option?

Suresh Lulla is the MD of Qimpro Consultants, founder of the BestPrax Club, and chairman of the IMC Quality Awards Committee. In 2005, he was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award by the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, in recognition of his outstanding achievements in Quality Management Consultancy.