back2business – News & Events
Brittany Ferries prove it's all in the planning!
Brittany Ferries has proved it can cope and continue to trade in the event of an unplanned incident through their partnership with back2business. Back2business are the official Business Continuity partners to Brittany Ferries and due to a telecommunications incident beyond Brittany Ferries control the continuity plan was recently tested with a very successful outcome.
The incident occurred when the ferry company's telecommunication provider conducted a line upgrade over night. The upgrade caused a fault across all their telephone lines resulting in over 12 Hours of no incoming or out going calls from their telephone reservations centre; a potential disaster for a company that relies heavily on telephone contact with their customers.
The fault itself was with the supplier and there was nothing wrong with the internal systems at Brittany Ferries. The incident was completely out of their hands. The team at Brittany Ferries immediately invoked their Business Continuity plan. As a result, 30 reservation staff were moved temporarily from the company’s head office in Millbay to the back2business Business Continuity Suite, based in, Estover.
On invocation back2business rolled out the Brittany Ferries "system image" using their proven restoration process ahead of staff arrivals. This resulted in staff being immediately back online with no customer disruption or lost business.
5th February, 2010Study Reveals Businesses Remain Complacent About Business Continuity
Businesses in Devon & Cornwall are still showing complacency when it comes to Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery, a major research project reveals.
As the anniversary of the Exeter bombing passes, it appears that businesses remain complacent when it comes to protecting their business operations. Following a recent study by Plymouth University in association with Back2business, a specialist in business continuity and Disaster recovery; it appears that companies are still failing to take basic Business Continuity measures despite the potential threats every business faces.
The aims of the study were to explore the current level of activity and awareness for this vital risk discipline and to establish the overall appetite towards Business Continuity. The study revealed shocking insights including; a large proportion of respondents don't have, contingency plans, alternative working strategies or backup IT in place.
Further to this, the Business Continuity discipline is considered to be largely in the domain of IT Managers. Mark Nicholas, Head of Business Continuity & Resilience at back2business, Commented: "I was really surprised that business owners felt that the sole responsibility of Business Continuity lies with the IT department. Using past experiences, successful management is always driven by the senior officers or board level to ensure thorough implementation and planning."
The last significant finding was that organisations felt that services and solutions would be 'out of reach' or just too expensive. There are many things which companies can do to minimise their risks and having resilient IT and an alternate workplace strategy is just two of those options.
Mark Nicholas, Head of Business Continuity & Resilience at back2business, Commented: "The terrorist attacks in Exeter should have been a stark warning to all businesses that they need to look at how they would continue operating following a disruptive incident, such as a bomb, fire, flood, or even a major IT or telecoms outage. As a discipline Business Continuity is relevant to businesses of all sizes and it doesn't need to be costly. It is quite disturbing to see that businesses still don't consider the survival of their companies as part of their management or executive responsibility."
21st July, 2009Brittany Ferries passes test with flying colours (20th Nov 2008)
Brittany Ferries has proved it can cope and continue to trade in the event of an unplanned incident or business disruption - thanks to back2business.
The ferry company wanted to test its recovery capability in the event of a major incident by initiating Project Armistice, which simulated the ability of the company to operate in as normal a way possible following a disaster.
Nearly 50 staff took part in a temporary relocation from the company's head office in Millbay to the back2business Business Continuity Suite, based in, Estover with call diversions and IT up and running well within the required response time.
Gareth Bewley, Brittany Ferries customer services manager, explained: "Our staff responded extremely well and the test was a huge success. They turned up at work as usual only to be told they had to evacuate our office."
"The staff know our business continuity procedures and so went straight to their new office for the day. We'd set ourselves a recovery time of four hours and instead we were up and running in the Continuity Centre within half an hour. This was largely due to the help given from back2business and the relationship we have built up with them."
And he explained that Brittany Ferries is not prepared to take a risk with the significant impact a fire, flood or IT failure could have on the business, when this can easily be mitigated by partnering and working closely with a continuity provider.
Mark Nicholas, Head of Business Continuity at back2business, added: "Every company or corporation should think about business continuity, regardless of its size.
"We work closely with our clients to ensure they have the right technology and the right people in place at the right time so they can continue working with minimal disruption or impact to their business operations.
"Far too many companies are failing to plan or put strategies in place if it all goes wrong, which is commercial suicide.
Protecting revenue, reputation and customers is critical for any business, and don't necessarily have to be cost prohibitive even in today's climate especially when local services and solutions are readily available."
