Case Study RIM/Blackberry

In today’s economy, organizations are faced with so many obstacles that could permanently alter the way they conduct business or remain relevant upon their competition. In addition to keeping up with the latest technology, new trends among their specific business industry, organizations need to have a plan of action in place if an event of any nature interrupts the normal flow of business. Disaster recovery and business continuity planning are two key processes that allow organizations to continue normal business functions in the event of an interruption.

When business is disrupted, It can cost an organization a lot of money. Potential lost revenues, In addition to extra expenses, means a reduction In profits.

Even though Insurance Is a smart business Investment option, It doesn’t cover all costs and cannot replace customers that turn to the competition. Business Continuity Plans are critical to the continuous operation of all types of businesses. Business continuity planning is becoming more important as companies rely heavily on technology to do business.

Organizations of all sizes place more emphasis on IT and communications services to purport their customer communications, business transactions and manage supply chains. As a result, they’ve become less tolerant of Information and service loss due to disasters or other business interruptions.

In order to create an effective Business Continuity Plan, a Business Impact Analysis should be performed. A Business Impact Analysis (BIB) is a tool used by the organizations when developing Business Continuity Plans (BCC).

The purpose of a business impact analysis is to collect information In an effort to understand the importance of the different functions of he organization and which ones are critical In maintaining normal business operations. It serves as the foundation for which an effective BCC can be created and implemented. A business impact analysis will identify and quantify business related impacts during a loss, disruption, or interruption of processes within an organization.

Having an effective business continuity plan gives an organization the ability to recover its operations under any given circumstance.

The data collected in a business impact analysis can be utilized as supporting data to define an appropriate budget for a business continuity budget. Having a Business Continuity plan Is a proactive way of avoiding needless downtime due to a disaster, security breach, or human error. A business operating without a business continuity plan could suffer long-term crippling consequences. Research In Motion is a large organization that knows all too well the negative affects not being properly prepared in the event of sudden business interruption.

Research In Motion Limited (RIM), currently known as BlackBerry Limited, is a telecommunication and wireless device company based In Ontario, Canada.

The company Is best known globally for Its development of the BlackBerry brand of smartness and mobile devices, which is used worldwide by various government agencies. Mike Lizards, the company’s founder, served as its co- CEO along with Jim Bilabials from its inception until January 2012. Originally a dominant innovative company in the smartened market for business and government the company has declined tremendously in recent years.

Some would argue this decline was due to stronger and more Innovative designs of their competitors. However, In a Tee Instances, tenet lack AT preparation proved to De a factor that pushed them even further behind.

In October of 2011, the company suffered a global service disruption that affected millions of its customers worldwide. The initial problem started Monday, October 1 lath with users in the Middle East, Europe and Africa. It soon spread to South America and Asia the following day, hitting United States and Canada on Wednesday.

The three day service outage was attributed too core switch failure. However, this was the absolute worst time to find out there was also a serious problem with the networks backup system. What was in place wasn’t of any use for this particular issue.

This incident was completely opposite of what an already struggling company needed. It also reiterates the importance of conducting business impact analysis to create an effective business continuity plan. The outage served a huge blow to the company’s reputation.

It not only interrupted the normal flow of blackberry’s network, it caused an interruption of business or personal normalcy in the lives of every blackberry customer. Critical business functions are vital functions within a specific organization, in which that organization depends on to operate or remain viable. Identifying key business unction is usually done prior too business impact analysis.

Even though there are several common critical business functions that exist in every organization, regardless of its business industry, there are also a few that are industry specific.

One example of a critical business function of a midsized organization would be its Human Resources department. In most companies the human resources department is the go-to department in the event of a disaster or interruption of normal business operations. Human Resources is the informational hub of a company and it is the department best position with providing guidance to company arsenal in any given situation. Facilities would be another critical business function of a midsized company.

Most midsized organizations have several different physical locations.

If, for some reason, a facility is not accessible or there’s a power outage, several daily business operations could be interrupted. Another example off critical business function of a midsized organization is their Information Technology infrastructure. In today’s world, businesses reply heavily on the IT infrastructure they have in place. Some form of technology is used to conduct business with partners, monomaniac with customers and complete important financial transactions. IT supports other critical business functions within an organization.

For example, payroll systems, inventory systems, as well as, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, are all vital company applications that all depend on information technology. Due to the fact that other critical business functions may depend upon the operation of another, certain devices should be restored before others. For example, after a disaster the facility itself needs to be inspected and cleared to be occupied. The next logical step would be restoring power to the facility before anything else. The HAVE system and all electronics of any kind will need power to function.