Introduction
The operations and business continuity of companies reliant on electronic data are particularly vulnerable to impairments in information technologies (IT) functioning or data losses. Such disruptions commonly occur during disasters, the preparation of which should be prioritized to protect the data and ensure business processes continuation even in a crisis. A well-designed contingency plan allows for designing specific policies, technical solutions, and step-by-step instructions for employees to back up the data and ensure instant business process recovery. This proposal introduces an IT contingency plan to minimize losses and ensure effective disaster recovery for successful organizational goals achievement under the circumstances of a crisis.
Roles and Responsibilities
Firstly, the contingency plan’s initial step is identifying the core business operations that should be prioritized in case of a disaster and allocating responsibilities to selected employees. According to the Office of the New York State Comptroller (2019), when responding to an incident, “personnel need to quickly recognize situations that are of greater severity and demand immediate attention” (p. 2). Therefore, the Chief Information Officer, the head of the supply chain management division, an HR manager, and an accounting manager should be appointed as responsible for protecting data in their respective spheres in the time of emergency. This team should be appointed with a leader who will be responsible for handling a disaster situation.
Preparations for Failures
Secondly, a communication protocol should include the procedures of failure reporting and disaster management guidance. The first responders should contact the contingency team leader, who should order an assessment of failure and direct recovery actions. The scope and impact of the hazard should be assessed by the team and reported to the team leader, who will decide whether alternate processing is required (Fischer et al., 2019). A communication protocol with an IT vendor should be developed to ensure fast alteration of IT operations. Furthermore, to ensure data restoration, backup storage should be initiated beforehand to attend in case of an emergency (Kassema, 2020). Emergency communication routes should be developed to ensure non-disruptive communication in a disaster. Responsible teams should have access to these means of communication to manage transfer protocols, which should entail the location of relocation, physical device evacuation, and data backup storage.
Technical Details on Restoring Data and Recovering Processes
Virtual data centers should be prepared to ensure business continuity and supply chain functioning under the impact of failure (Padilla & Freire, 2019). Each team member should be responsible for restoring the data related to their respective business operations. Data servers and database centers should be externally based to ensure the safety of information and the availability of business process restoration (Dhanujati & Girsang, 2018). Core supply chain stakeholders should be informed about the transfer protocols activation to ensure the continuity of business processes (Burton et al., 2021). The preparation of data centers and backup communication means will allow for preventing operations disruption during a disaster.
Conclusion
In conclusion, thought-through communication processes and clear identification of roles and responsibilities in emergencies will help minimize time spent on emergency response and limit business losses. Implementing external technical solutions such as virtual databases, remote data servers, and data centers will help secure the information and restore business processes immediately. Thus, the proposed plan will allow for achieving business goals and protecting important data during disaster management procedures.
References
Burton, K., Cuffee, N., Neclos, D., Olatunbosun, S., & Ajani, T. (2021). Contingency planning: Prioritizing your resources. In Advances in Software Engineering, Education, and e-Learning (pp. 937-942). Springer, Cham.
Dhanujati, N., & Girsang, A. S. (2018). Data center-disaster recovery center (DC-DRC) for high availability IT service. In 2018 International Conference on Information Management and Technology (pp. 55-60). IEEE.
Fischer, R. J., Halibozek, E. P., & Walters, D. C. (2019). Contingency planning emergency response and safety. In Introduction to security (10th ed.) (pp. 249-268). Elsevier.
Kassema, J. J. (2020). Information Technology (IT) contingency plan as part of the business continuity plan: Case of IT services delivery industry. International Journal of Information Systems & Management Science, 12(2), 1-24.
Office of the New York State Comptroller. (2019). Local government management guide: Information technology contingency planning. Web.
Padilla, V. S., & Freire, F. F. (2019). A contingency plan framework for cyber-attacks. Journal of Information Systems Engineering & Management, 4(2), 2-7.