Business Continuity, Ecommerce, and thoughts

Welcome in Class!

In today’s post, I’d like to give a little background into the importance of Ecommerce and connectivity in business continuity, and how in the grand scheme of things, it can keep a business from going under.  The quick definition of business continuity, is the ability to mitigate or prevent disruption to the availability of services in an organization, public or private.  In today’s business environment, the necessity of being up 24/7/365 is imperative.  Connectivity is all too evident, not just for business function, as this class teaches, but something else; data backup.  For this to be done effectively it must be done sychronously to when the data is being written; or close to it.  No tapes, if possible, although many are still using them (argh!).  Connectivity is just the first step to getting the business back up after the disaster, just to recover the data, the brain of the business.  If Ecommerce is still continuing, regardless of a disaster, reputational risk has been averted, revenue is still maintained, and simply paying for recovery is all that is left.  20% of all businesses fail after a disaster, and regaining customer confidence is the main reason.  Internal stakeholders must also know they will still have  a job to come back to, and if continuity of operations is maintained, that battle has been won.  Ecommerce can save a business in its time of need.

Alternatively, when businesses take on web services before properly transitioning its legacy operations, for example, a large department store, it can pose problems.  I can speak from experience in this area, as I worked for one of these which recently saw one of its suburban locations go out of business.  The inability to compete, combined with a refusal of those on the ground to believe in metrics vs their own judgement, doomed the store to failure.  Adjustments must be made when the reliance is on big data, and no longer on individuals, and each store becomes a fulfillment center.  Retail is in another transition, as the last three years has also seen a shift in the education requirements in managers in these locations.  These judgement calls have not been in the businesses best interests, and senior management wants people who are thinking more high level.  It’s a new day.

I wanted to thank everyone who has been so encouraging this first week, this is the first time I’ve ever written a blog, but I had a vision for what I wanted.  I wanted something which could eventually become the site for my consulting firm.  I hoped to make it a news site for supply chain and business continuity.  I wanted to pay tribute to those whose jobs I tried to save, but could not.  It’s why I’m here.

Radhika

As a Post Script, and an aside there will be a memoriam pic in the sidebar.  As a graduate of the BU School of Music, it is only fitting.