Consulting

Business Analysis

risk managment
contingency
business continuity

It all seems like a lot of hype now, years past that critical point in time when experts were not so sure what might happen when the millennium rang in.

Now we all know, the world did not fall apart however much important work was still achieved during this time to ensure north sea gas platforms were not going to be affected adversely amongst other parts of the business.

The full programme ended up being an excellent exercise to undertake a risk assessment and business continuity undertaking to ensure that all parts of the business had been thought of, so there was a lot more that came out of the programme other than just ensuring their systems would work in the new millennium.

After the Bishopsgate bombing in London in 1993 it became apparent across London's financial sector that some of their business recovery processes could be improved. For the first time it was realised that there was more to business recovery than merely having a suitable backup arrangement for just the IT infrastructure. The large 21 department investment bank engaged Michael Squire to administer the recovery planning and organisation including tested well documented procedures.

A workable arrangement involves buy-in from the top down including all departmental managers, each of whom need to have their own physical copy of the plan held off-site so that if worse comes to worst they have a point from which to start.

80% of all businesses that have a major disaster never trade again

Imagine that you came to your office and it wasn't there or the police or fire brigade would not let you in due to extensive damage or dangerous material on the street, what would you do? How would you go about your business i.e. what about your clients? How would you direct your personnel? Work from home maybe? Are they set up for that? What about insurance? Will it cover you for lost trade?

Even if you have reciprocal arrangements with permanently hired and established space, as trading banks have, are you sure that this is not shared with another business in close proximity to you so that you may be left squabbling over available desk space?

There's a lot to think about right from the initial "where do we start" to a well practised and well oiled recovery procedure.

As computerisation has grown, and there is usually a computer on every desk in every office, it has become important to be able to retrieve information that has been deleted or damaged for a variety of purposes.

You may have seen on the television police seizing computers that may have been used in cases of fraud or child pornography but did you ever wonder what happened to them after that?

Most police forces around the world have access to professional forensic analysts who have been highly trained to investigate computer systems and information repositories. They use special software and methodologies to ensure that the way they conduct their investigations and the evidence they find is admissible in court. "Chain of custody" is a term that is used in computer forensics and means that special methodology and recordings are used to ensure that the material seized can be traced to a particular medium whether it be a hard disk, floppy, USB, SIM card, disc, tape or any other medium upon which information is stored.

Michael Squire established the first computer forensics laboratory for a well known company specialising in insolvency.

Cases included the investigation of fraud at the highest level, incompetence and double sets of books.

Finding valuable information which was thought to be deleted for good has been a valuable service to private clients.

Most companies have developed their own databases for storing client records, orders, e-commerce activity and the like. Databases can take many forms from being as simple as a text file or something more structed such as a Microsoft Excel, Access or SQL file which may reside on a web server somewhere ready to be queried by thousands of users.

Thought should also be given to the possibility of analysing disparate databases by matching certain parts of each. Such exercises are of assistance in large government departments and larger corporations to check that employees are not also presenting themselves as subcontractors and taking advantage of confidential inside knowledge.

Fortunately there are now a number of commercial software tools that are able to assist in this regard.

A world class airline was looking for software to enhance its inflight catering operations in the form of menu planning and costing with the possibility of it becoming an integral part of their management system. Michael Squire was engaged to undertake a requirements gathering exercise by bringing together user groups and discussing what elements were important to them.

This exercise included liaising with thrid party Vendors and visiting North American based international carriers to ascertain what they were using and what methodology they had engaged.