Business continuity is a subject that doesn't get mentioned nearly enough. How does an organisation carry on should some, or all, of its systems become unavailable?
It's one of those questions where there are many, many answers, because it depends…
It depends on what has gone wrong, to what extent, for how long (if that's even known), what other systems have stopped working as a result, and much more.
So planning for these events can become quite complex. Do you have a separate plan for each system? And, more importantly, are those plans integrated should multiple, connected systems fail?
It might be that one system fails and makes another unusable, without that second system actually failing itself.
Finance might have copies of debtor and creditor values. The purchasing department might still be able to receipt deliveries. But what about the teams that rely on those functions?
How does an employee raise an order? Is the list of preferred suppliers available, along with documented rates and discounts?
Are staff able to enter their timesheets for payroll? And can payroll still submit payment files electronically to the bank?
What about door access? Passes might stop working altogether, or worse, allow entry when they shouldn't.
Large organisations might be better placed to cope. They may have the staff, resources and procedures to implement their continuity plans. But what about smaller businesses?
When things go wrong in hospitality, problems can escalate quite quickly.
The tills go down and staff aren't sure of the prices. Orders have to be handwritten and passed to the kitchen, making sure they aren't duplicated and causing confusion when serving tables.
The payment terminals might fail, either alongside the tills or completely independently, leaving businesses relying on bank transfers from customers who are happy to oblige.
But let's look at things from the other side. The customer side.
A large organisation experiencing problems will probably receive some understanding and a period of grace from its customers. After all, we understand that things can go wrong, systems are complicated and getting everything back up and running takes time.
But is that same understanding extended to smaller businesses?
In hospitality, customers can be much quicker to complain, blaming the staff and demanding answers.
I once heard of a wedding party becoming quite confrontational because of a Europe-wide payment system outage. Their guests had to wait a little longer to get their drinks…
And let's be honest, the staff serving those drinks probably had very little control over the situation!
It's interesting how our perspective changes depending on which side of the problem we're on.
When we're the business, we understand the challenges. We know the plans, the workarounds, the dependencies and the things that perhaps weren't considered. We appreciate that keeping things running isn't always straightforward.
Sometimes we're the Good. We've planned, prepared and put arrangements in place. We know what to do when things go wrong.
Sometimes we're the Bad. We've made plans, but perhaps not everything was considered. Some integrations were overlooked, dependencies weren't fully understood and we're experiencing an outage of service despite our best efforts.
And sometimes we're the Ugly.
We're the customer. We're the ones waiting for our food, unable to pay by card, or frustrated because a service isn't available. Suddenly, all that understanding we had when it was our own organisation experiencing problems seems to disappear.
Finally, consider whose business suffers the most.
It's often the smaller ones.
They don't necessarily have spare staff, alternative systems or the financial resources to absorb an extended interruption. A relatively minor technical issue can have a much bigger impact on their ability to trade.
Businesses don't necessarily announce that they're operating in business continuity mode. But when they mention they're experiencing system problems, stop and think.
There may be considerably more going on behind the scenes than you realise. Staff may be working around failed systems, trying to maintain services and keep customers happy, often with very limited options.
Do you want to be the Good, the Bad, or the Ugly?
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