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Technology Survive and thrive Expertise and experience offer insight into better business continuity and disaster planning By John Chivvis It's the kind of statistic that would make any agency owner cringe. “About 60% of the businesses affected by a disaster will not survive because they do not have a recovery plan in place,” says Bob Boyd, president and CEO of Agility Recovery Solutions, an industry provider of mobile business continuity solutions. However, with proactive planning and realistic business assessments, insurance agencies can be back in business shortly after a disaster occurs, ready to help their customers. Planning for an alternate location According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), developing a “continuity of operations plan” includes plans on what a business will do if the “building, plant or store is not accessible.” DHS says that businesses need to consider if they can “run the business from an alternate location.” For Steve Kessler, CEO of the Santa Monica, California-based Sander A. Kessler & Associates insurance agency, previous experience with the earthquakes and wildfires of Southern California meant building a separate “hot site” on his ranch in the Malibu area. “We took two of the stalls in the horse barn and converted them into a fully enclosed site with air conditioning, server racks, with tables and chairs for eight employees,” Steve explains. “We also keep an adequate supply of water, food, soft drinks, and other necessities on hand in case of an emergency.” As for connectivity to the Internet, Kessler has dedicated T1 lines out to the hot site as well as to a mobile home on the ranch property that will accommodate seven more employees. Then there’s the technology to run the agency, including SQL servers, firewall, telecommunications (VoIP) system, fax machine, and printer, as well as 15 laptops. “I remember the quake of 1994,” says Steve. “When there’s an earthquake, it’s more than just not having access to your building; everything is shut down—the city is shut down.” However, Steve knows that not all agencies can afford their own hot site. “There are a number of facilities where owners can rent space or servers,” he says, which echoes the DHS recommendation that a business develop relationships with other companies for facilities in the event their own is unusable. One of those aforementioned “other companies” is Agility. Previously a division of GE Capital, Agility’s experience lies in providing business recovery and continuity services and consulting. “Most small businesses can’t afford their own dedicated hot site—they just can’t afford to pay that much,” says Bill Boyd, Agility’s chairman. Paul Sullivan, vice president of strategic operations and general manager for Agility, explains that most vendors’ disaster recovery solutions are geared toward Fortune 1000 companies, “most small and medium-sized businesses think that these services are not affordable.” However, Agility offers agencies a service called ReadySuite that provides “members-only” access to a complete business continuity solution for as little as $250 a month. “One of our first vertical markets for ReadySuite was independent insurance agents,” Bill says. “When a disaster hits, agents need to be able to respond to their clients’ needs.” With offices in Atlanta and Toronto, Agility has access to inventory across North America. “We’ve been unbelievably accepted by the marketplace,” says Bill, referring to their 100% success rate, “because when a disaster occurs, we’re able to get businesses back up and running within 48 hours.” In addition to the low cost and the quick turnaround time, ReadySuite is also a mobile or on-site solution. “When we went with our teams to Baton Rouge after the hurricanes,” says Bob, “there were many of our clients who were able to recover in their parking lot.” Through ReadySuite, Agility will deliver a mobile office with room for 35 to 40 employees if suitable office space cannot be found. The mobile workspace comes complete with computers, power generators, and satellite communications for telephones and Internet access. “We have over $35 million in computer and technology hardware ready to go in case of a disaster,” Paul says. In the event of a business interruption and a disaster is declared, Agility sets the member agency’s recovery plan in motion, and the agency is responsible for Agility’s out-of-pocket costs only. An agency’s own insurance typically covers these expenses. “When we respond to a disaster on behalf of our members, their cost is our cost—we don’t make a dime off of it,” Bill explains. “Basically on the day of a disaster, we come out and fix it—no matter what.” Making internal and external assessments As part of ReadySuite membership, Agility takes clients through a “Roadmap to Recovery”—typically a two-week period spent with a consultant who helps the agency assess business workflow processes—both internally and externally. “This is a foreign concept to most small to mid-sized businesses,” says Paul. According to DHS, the first item on the list for planning to stay in business is to “carefully assess how your company functions … to determine which staff, materials, procedures, and equipment are absolutely necessary to keep the business running.” Backing up the DHS recommendation, Paul adds that critical business functions also should include taking care of employee needs. Critical employee services such as payroll need to be part of the planning. “A business is really about its people, but it is still one of the areas that’s still most overlooked,” he notes. For Kessler, this internal assessment has led to the agency’s development of a schematic of strategic and important positions in the event of a disaster. This includes three to four employees handling claims, three to four senior account managers (three from the benefits department, two for private client services), two managers and two IT personnel. “I also have it divided into two shifts based on employee skill sets and where each employee lives,” Steve adds. “In Baton Rouge we saw the need for better business-to-employee communications,” Bob recalls. “Most people hadn’t talked with their teams; employees didn’t know whom to call or where to go—especially when they were displaced all over the Southeast.” This is where an employee communication plan becomes important. Agility recommends that agencies develop a 24-hour “phone tree” for all employees and their spouses/closest relatives. After seeing the importance of and need for cellular phones in the aftermath of the hurricanes, Bob says that it is paramount that employees are trained on how and whom to call to get information or give information—even when standard communication lines fail. Besides the internal assessments of the agency, knowing how to communicate externally is equally as important. Kessler’s contact list includes employees as well as contact information for customers, vendors, and suppliers. Even though DHS recommends that businesses develop an emergency contact list of the companies and contacts they interact with, the folks at Agility say that less than half of U.S. businesses have continuity plans in place that take into account their supply chains. “Businesses need to be asking themselves,” Bob says, “‘What if one of my suppliers goes down? How will we function?’” Kessler’s continuity planning includes step-by-step plans for before, during, and after a disaster. This way even if Kessler & Associates’ business is interrupted or shifted, their clients will still know that the agency is able to take care of them. “We want to make sure our clients know what is going on,” says Steve, referring to their disaster communications. “We send out e-mails to our clients; we shift our Web pages over to reflect the office closure and even post the direct numbers for the carriers we represent.” Taking care of business Commenting on Bob Boyd’s earlier statistic, Paul calls having a business continuity plan in place a “competitive advantage.” He notes, “When you help a business recover quickly, you find that you’re not just helping the business recover, but you’re helping their customers recover, too.” “While we’re here to help put people’s lives and businesses back together, we also know that businesses that can get back up and running quickly typically flourish after a disaster,” observes Bill. “But we have to get people thinking about the processes and the planning, first.” For more than 16 years, Agility has been helping businesses plan for and recover from disasters; but for Bob Boyd, it’s still the ones that don’t prepare and ultimately don’t survive that affect him most. “We’ve seen businesses with no [business continuity] plan in place that are powerless to resume operations,” he says. “There is no worse feeling and no worse fate.” * For more information:
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