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Case Study: Mitigating the Impact of ICT disruptions on operations.

Client Background:

Brief: Mitigating the Impact of ICT disruptions on operations.

Industry: Logistics

Organisation Size: Large-scale enterprise
(25 000+ employees)

Project Duration: 12 months

Simulation Objectives

The project had several key objectives, which collectively aimed at enhancing the organisation’s IT resilience, minimise downtime and ensure continuity of critical business operation in the face of IT disruptions. These included:

  • Establishing IT Disaster Recovery Capability: This involved setting up processes and systems within the organisation to effectively respond to and recover from IT disasters.
  • Mapping IT Systems Landscape: The project comprehensively mapped out all critical IT systems and applications within the organisation, along with the operations supported by these IT systems.
  • Conducting Business Impact Analysis: An analysis was conducted to assess the impact of IT systems disruptions on organisational operations, helping to prioritize recovery efforts.
  • Documenting Infrastructure Information: Detailed documentation of infrastructure information created for each IT system, providing essential insights into the underlying technology.
  • Addressing Single Points of Failure (SPoFs): Identification and mitigation of single points of failure for each IT system will be undertaken to enhance resilience and reliability.
  • Developing Technical Recovery Procedures: Technical recovery procedures were developed for each IT system, outlining step-by-step processes to restore functionality in the event of a disaster.
  • Performing IT Disaster Recovery Testing: Testing was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of IT disaster recovery capabilities and ascertain the organization’s readiness to recover from IT disasters.

The Challenge

As a result of evolving technologies and shifting customer demands, the organisation encountered a highly complex IT applications landscape. These systems were distributed across both in-house infrastructure and vendor-hosted platforms. Documenting a comprehensive view of the IT landscape posed challenges, and the potential impact of disruptions was uncertain. With the addition of new clients and systems, the necessity for a robust IT disaster recovery program became evident to mitigate the effects of disruptions and protect the systems.

Our Solution/Approach:

We initiated the project by conducting a comprehensive Business Impact Analysis (BIA) of the Technology division to determine the business operations relying on specific IT systems and their recovery objectives. Following this, we documented infrastructure details for the identified IT systems and identified interdependencies. All data was directly inputted into our custom-built BCM Toolkit software, designed to analyse, map, and document interdependencies, and visualize the IT systems landscape.

This streamlined the process of identifying deficiencies, gaps, and Single Points of Failure (SPoFs).

These data points become the building blocks for recovery strategies and solutions which were tested successfully post implementation.