Making A Silk Purse from A Sow's Ear (or trying to find something positive in Swine Flu)

While I am squarely in the camp of those who believe that the current incarnation of the misnamed Swine Flu Pandemic has been grossly exaggerated, it has provided a useful pause in the thinking of many enterprises, causing them to ask, "What if it had been the real thing?"
 

One need only look south to Mexico City to see in glaring reality the impacts of a locked-down city and the effects on day to day life and commerce. And though 2005 is a "distant past" at this point, if anyone finds Mexico City's situation disturbing, it still pales in comparison to the tragedy of post-Katrina New Orleans.
 

Certainly those along the south Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the U.S. have taken continuity planning more seriously since the days of Katrina and many large Northeast institutions have done likewise since the horrors of 9/11. But generally speaking, it has been my observation that the great majority of mid-sized enterprises have largely let their continuity planning languish, especially around their communications infrastructure. And it's easy to understand why. If you don't stare down the barrel of a monster hurricane every year, the likelihood of an enterprise-threatening event is probably fairly minimal, while the costs of preparing for one can be quite high. 

So, this hyped-up pig flu has probably had one very positive impact. It's brought to everyone's attention--and not just the folks along the coast in South Florida and Louisiana--just how impacting a pandemic or other enterprise-disabling event would be. Given the span of places where the flu presented itself in relatively quick order, it's not too hard to imagine a lockdown in Anytown, USA.
 

Now anyone who has endured hearing me expound for more than two minutes on hosted communications knows I have preached continuously about hosted UC's inherent business continuity. For most small to mid-sized enterprises, replicating a PBX at a second location and creating a failover procedure is just economically unfeasible. Although most companies have back-up servers to support data recovery and email, these same companies have no clear way of maintaining enterprise-wide telecommunications during a business-disrupting event.

It has been gratifying to see many enterprises begin to seriously contemplate their continuity plans, the "what-if" of the swine flu impacts, and the potential of having their work forces locked down, at home for a period of days or longer. 
 

Some CIOs look at hosted unified communications strictly as a continuity solution, to provide recovery for specific parts of the enterprise that would be mission critical. While others are energized about hosted communications not only for the continuity it brings to the table, but also for the mobility and remote office support, the collaboration for their users and the savings in its no CapEx model.

 

I'll save the Cypress-hype for another post and close with this thought. With today's hosted communications technology, every enterprise in the U.S. can operate "virtually" with employees scattered away from corporate offices, yet operating as if they were sitting side-by-side. To the outside world, the geographic distribution of the employees is completely transparent. Beyond the great flexibility this operational model provides, it enables the enterprise to not just survive, but to continue to thrive in the face of significant disaster, with little or no down time. Now that's a very real competitive edge and in today's economic times, a necessity. Each business executive, not just the CIOs and IT Directors, but the CEOs, CFOs, COOs and Managing Directors, owes it to themselves, their investors and their employees to take a hard look at making their business truly survivable, no matter what.