Introduction
The world witnesses several natural disasters that clam millions and millions of human lives every year. Natural disasters such as volcanic eruption, earthquake, lightning, floods, hurricanes and tornadoes are the result of a natural hazard which generally moves from potential in to an active phase. This may result in serious damages and affects human activities. If there is no proper planning and preparedness, it may lead to serious vulnerability that can be financial, structural, and human losses. Natural disasters need proper planning to overcome. Apart from the natural disasters, there are numerous events that may possibly be classified as a technology disaster. Hardware breakdown, Virus attacks, or it can be situations such as forgetting passwords can create great problems in a company’s operations. This paper discusses in brief the methods to protect a company’s knowledge base in any event of natural disasters.
Main body
One of the easiest ways to overcome and protect the company’s knowledge base is by maintaining operations manual that presents an exhaustive explanation of the organization workflow and important processes. It can also include precautions or even response steps to certain failures. It can be also a database including the planned steps to keep technology assets throughout a disaster period. It can also help in case the company has to be shifted to another location, this knowledge base and database can be of great help. However, in case of sudden natural disasters such as severe flood, hurricane, or ice storm or even in cases such as volcanic eruptions or earthquakes, it might be possible that the stored data may get completely destroyed. Even if the data is stored as a soft copy, it might not be easy for the data retrieval due to power outages for a prolonged period of time.
Today organizations have various branches inside and outside the countries. The technological expansion has helped most companies to go beyond the boundaries of their immediate location that may be affected by the disaster. The information that is stored in other places will help to continue the business even if their area is affected by a disaster. There are several companies that work from remote locations over a single network and this way the company’s knowledge base can be stored in different places even if the primary location is not available due to some reasons.
The manpower that is lost during a disaster is one of the major lose. The intelligent work forces are also an important source of knowledge and need to be protected. There are several technological options such as supplemental power and high accessibility that can preserve service during a disaster. Hence it can be said that documenting significant system or organizational information lessens the brunt to the organization even if there is loss of employees or the major staff. In any cases if there is a sudden disaster and there is loss of any data, it becomes highly difficult for the managers to get back the knowledge of the business and also if there is an abrupt loss of an employees. Even with advanced notice of a separation, there is generally not sufficient time to transfer knowledge and train a new employee (KNS, 1999).
Today even with the technological hype, it is difficult to protect the knowledge base. There are several companies that put their most precious computer databases several meters below ground in trenches. These can protect the information from various natural and man-made disasters such as nuclear explosion, terrorist attack, chemical or biological warfare etc. knowledge base of prime companies such as the media, economics, telecommunications and biotechnology have preserved their servers in completely sealed or air tight environments. The protections can include pressurized air locks, refined electronic detection systems, special metal doors, safety human resources and barbed wire. In fact these companies need a very high level of protection that includes off-site storage, superfluous power, and fire protection etc. researchers in this field have suggested that it is always good to keep the important data in tow or more diverse places that are at a minimum of 75 kilometers away. Besides, the servers need to be protected from any dangers and implementation of virus protection and fire wall is essential.
It is very essential to have a well-planned, proven data-protection approach that will make sure business continuity even if incidences such as 9/11 or natural disasters occur. There are several organizations that have come out with such ideas. For instance, in Germany, Tenovis Databurg has fabricated a 2,200-square-meter electronic castle in Frankfurt particularly intended to make sure company connection for some of the chief German banks and financial institutions was not lost in case of a terrorist attack or natural disaster. Similarly, in the United States, a corporation called Underground Secure Data Center Operations constructed a storage facility that is 85 feet buried underground in a deserted gypsum mine in Michigan (McGrath, 2002).
In conclusion, it can be said that the most important wealth in the world is knowledge. It empowers public policy, educates citizens, enhances person talents, amplifies team output, and drives innovation (ASAE & The Center, 2008). Today most of the organization recognizes the fact that knowledge is the key asset that needs to be preserved in a most safe manner from any kind of catastrophic events. It is essential that the knowledge especially the operational knowledge is passed on and on to the new generation employees from the old employees. Besides, any natural disasters leave the organizations at great trouble when these events produce employee churn that drains the knowledge asset.
References
ASAE & The Center, (2008) Knowledge Continuity: The New Competitive Advantage, Web.
KNS, (1999) Disaster Recovery, Disaster Planning, Web.
McGrath, D. (2002) Some companies dig deep in quest for security, The International Herald Tribune. Web.