APEC puts Business Continuity in Focus
APEC puts Business Continuity in Focus
September/October Edition, 2007: The Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum has wound down with half of the state’s police force returning to their day jobs and the great wall of APEC reduced to dust. But what did we get out of it? Apart from a number of trade deals and non-enforceable climate change targets, the forum has highlighted serious business continuity concerns.
The benefit of hindsight allows us to see the only serious security incident throughout the APEC summit was when television program, The Chaser assembled a fake Canadian motorcade. The stunt made a mockery of the $170 Million security operation by slipping past two security checks. This was revealed to involve badges labeled ‘fake’ and ‘insecurity pass’ which miraculously allowed the fake motorcade to arrive outside US President, George Bush’s hotel with one Chaser member emerging dressed as Osama Bin Laden.
While the NSW police have been busy handling the media over the embarrassment suffered because of this stunt, it’s hardly a major security issue that caused damage to critical infrastructure. What APEC did do is highlight the fact that very few businesses have a continuity plan, with the common approach being to shove our collective heads in the sand and pretend there is no danger.
Business Continuity refers to the ability for a business to recover from a disaster or damage to infrastructure and assets. It’s important to remember we’re not solely talking about terrorist attacks, although this will grab the sauciest headlines, but the very real threats of businesses suffering damage due to events or disruptions like APEC. Problems can arise from security shutdowns, delivery problems, productivity losses as well as physical damage to infrastructure through violent protests and riots.
“People need to see the big picture on this,” says Patricia Forsythe, Executive Director of the Sydney Chamber of Commerce. “The small business pain during APEC will bring in a downturn, but Sydney has to be able to cope because we can’t pretend to be a global city without holding this.”
When considering business continuity, businesses need to focus on the most probable threats. During APEC, that threat was more likely to be productivity loss resulting from the increased security presence. Despite the fact APEC was relatively attack free, the Central Business District (CBD) of Sydney was locked down severely, with several areas completely out of action. The thing to consider here is even restricting access on the smallest section of a CBD road will result in delays to deliveries, difficulties for employees getting to work while also preventing customers from accessing the business.
“One of the critical issues is delivery times, especially between midnight and 8am,” says Forsythe. When you equate this fact with just how much of Sydney’s CBD was restricted, we start to get an idea of how business might have been affected. APEC serves as an important lesson for organisations to consider the impacts on continuity and plan ahead.
“Major tier one service providers, such as the financial sector have well established business continuity plans, so they already had a close synch with what APEC had planned anyway” says Dr. Chris Flaherty, Principal Consultant at Critical Infrastructure Protection.However while larger corporations may have the resources to develop business continuity plans years in advance, APEC highlighted some of the significant gaps in small to medium sized organisations.
“Difficulties started for the second tier companies and the small to mid-sized enterprises, which touches on how a large number of firms haven’t got around to making business continuity plans,” says Flaherty. “While a lot of firms weren’t directly affected by APEC, with numerous service providers being able to work from home, other sectors were dramatically affected, such as stock brokers who have to stay on the job.”
This isn’t to say APEC was disastrous for all businesses in the CBD. Security firms were handed a feast of opportunities as security concerns skyrocketed. The hotel industry also benefited from the thousands of attendee’s and entourages who came into the city to attend the summit, though the attendance numbers were down on expectations.
Some businesses may have also benefited from the awareness campaign from APEC planning authorities that aimed to prepare Sydney based organisations with continuity plans that included crafting ‘work from home’ strategies for employees. With the seed planted for businesses to consider continuity plans that may never have been thought about before APEC, some small-mid sized organisations might find they have an emergency strategy in place in case of disaster. For large organisations, the event may have offered a test-bed scenario for business continuity plans, and the opportunity to revisit their strategies.
Now that the traveling circus that is APEC has completely left town, it’s a good chance for businesses to stop and reflect on the continuity issues it provoked. Major protest action isn’t anything new and can easily be stirred up with very little notice should some form of atrocious political act be set in motion. While the police presence at the major APEC protest was that intensive they almost outnumbered protestors, it’s important for businesses to consider what they can do in the event of critical infrastructure damage.
It’s hard to plan around a terrorist detonating a nuclear device right next to your business, you’re pretty much guaranteed to become a smoking crater should that eventuate, however issues like delivery problems as well as employee and customer access problems can be sorted simply with good planning.
Besides costing taxpayers $24 million per day in security costs, APEC has provided businesses with the smoking gun they lacked to work on a business continuity plan, as well as endless entertainment watching a fake Osama emerge out of The Chaser’s fake Canadian motorcade.