BPC: The Information 101

Prasanto K Roy

June 9, 1600, an hour to my flight. I have a dinner at Hyderabad, and next

morning, one of our group's Project W events on wireless data. In my car, a

quick check with jetairways.com says that flight 825 is 10 min late. On Airtel,

I SMS "JET 825" to 500; same response. I step into Delhi airport...

Ouch. Queues jam up the entrance. "The network is down." No

check-in. I join the anxious crowds. The display still says ETD 17:10. When the

system's finally back up at 17:35, there are tired faces and frayed nerves,

all straining to hear them call out flights. The screen still says ETD: 17:10.

So why does a critical system go "down"? Well, it's not just an

India thing. I land in Germany. We reach a parking slot, and there's no

activity for three minutes. Then the pilot's voice: the ground control network

has failed. We have arrived, but the "system" doesn't know it, nor

where we are, so it can't send buses to pick us up. Oops. Frankfurt Main is

down? How about air-traffic control...?

Here, the difference was information. We got five-minute updates, and

reassurances that we would not miss connections. The Lufthansa pilot finally got

through to the right managers on his cellphone, and managed to get a bus over in

15 minutes. In the terminal, emergency work was ensuring that hundreds of

flights stayed on track. At Delhi airport, we got no information, updates or

reassurance. All question got a polite: "Sorry, systems down, up in ten

minutes..."

These are advanced IT users. Frankfurt Main and Lufthansa are

right up there, both in back-end IT, and in new services-including in-flight

Wi-Fi. (Sadly, I'm writing this on an Air France flight, whose business class

seats don't even have a power socket.) Jet Airways too leads India's

airlines in IT deployment, including new services such as e-ticketing. It's

also fairly customer friendly. I dread to think of such a scenario with India's

other airlines where flights are canceled or delayed without explanation or

apology.

But in the best of systems and business process continuity (BPC)

plans, the weak link is often the people who use the systems. And in this

information era, the biggest casualty of any disaster is often-information.

So, a reminder for CIOs running business-critical systems.

1. BPC technology is well defined. The people part is

equally critical. BPC breaks down if people aren't crisis-trained and -tested.

2. IT is information technology. Information runs the

business. Information is also the key to customer retention and happiness. If

there's a BPC breakdown, the best you can do while you recover is communicate

the problem. Inform. Tell customers some specifics. Answer their FAQs. Reassure.

Make it part of your BPC-DR process. Make the waiting easier. They'll

appreciate you for it.

That's IT with a 'people' touch, and it helps win and

retain customers.

Prasanto K Roy