wk7 post responses

Analyze the risks faced by Engro that were identified by your colleagues, and compare them with those you identified. Comment and discuss the similarities and/or differences.

• Analyze the features identified by your colleague that were omitted from the plan, and compare them with those you identified. Comment and discuss the similarities and/or differences.
• Provide an alternative perspective on the best practices for business continuity planning. Use examples based on your experience or observations to support your perspective.
• Offer your ideas about how the best practices suggested by your colleague could be used at your organization. Explain why you think these might offer a competitive advantage for your organization.
• POST 1

The fire ruined everything; all computers and servers were a complete loss. The auditors were concerned that the company could breach the statutory provisions in the Companies Ordinance relating to the minimum period that a publicly-listed company’s records were required to be retained (Ahmed, 2009). Engro had lost hard copy financial records for years 2004-2006 and half of the year 2007. Due to this case, the Engro Chemical Pakistan Limited company unable to publish annual financial report. If the daily transactions for the company weren’t backed all of the data there wouldn’t be any way to retrieve them so they would be a total loss. Records were necessary to issue financial information for stocks and for future projects.

• The disaster recovery and business continuity plans are important to positively recuperating from a disaster. Business continuity plan outlines how the business will remain its operations after a disaster. It pinpoints the long-term, essential strategies that are necessary to ensure that the business continues constancy and creates profits. Preventive measures which is part of DRP pursue to identify and decrease risks. These measures may include keeping data backed up and off site, using surge protectors, installing generators and conducting routine inspections. We already know that the company didn’t have their data backed up and off site. Detective measures’ purpose is to reveal new probable threats. In this case, the measures that was excluded are installing fire alarms and holding employee training sessions.
• The fire that occur in Karachi and destroyed all the Engro’s equipment and the hardcopies of their accounting record, had allowed the information technology (IT) department in Engro to develop a disaster recovery plan (DRP) that was exclusively related to rebuilding the IT facilities after that unexpected event occur. The company invoked the DRP as soon as the news of the complete destruction of the office facilities was received.

• The three reinstalled system that was used, MIDAS, MAXIMO and SAP, were not fully integrated and it allowed Engro to encounter a speedy recover than if all the systems had been integrated. This has certainly negated the concept of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). ERP is business management software that allows an organization to use a system of integrated applications to manage the business. ERP software integrates all facades of an operation, including development, manufacturing, sales and marketing. Besides, it is also systems that integrate internal and external management information across an entire organization to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions. In contradict to this, Engro didn’t use the system that integrate with each other. However, Engro only focused on those three systems that allowed them to reestablished electronic links, e-mail and internet in the Bahria Complex.

  Engro criticized that the process of generating document records was time consuming as they only needed the current year’s data in order to complete their financial statement, therefore they decided to skip on this step. Also, Engro felt that there was no need to consume high cost in regenerating the physical document when the data would be safer in electronic form.

  • Engro launched its Disaster Recovery Plan (DPR) due to the fire that broke out in PNSC building, Karachi, where the head office and registered office of the office was located. The company launched an initiative to recreate significant loss records and was successful in gathering the same in respect of the current reported financial year. Engro uses “corrective measure disaster plan” to overcome their problem. Corrective measures are aimed to restore a system after a disaster or unwanted event takes place. These measures focus on fixing or restoring the systems after a disaster. Corrective measures may include keeping critical documents in the Disaster Recovery Plan.

  In order for Engro to restore back their lost record, they decided to run the server with a SAP Setup. SAP was used by the finance and human resource sections at the head office and by the Industrial Relations Department at the plant to facilitate their operation needs.  With this resolution, Engro could use the integrated backup service to make sure their files can be recovered in the event of fire or any other disaster. Employees in Engro can automatically install the operating systems on servers easily.

  The company hired a public accounting firm hired in order to provide temporary staff who have more than 5 year’s experiences in this field. The staff was asked to reconciling duplicate invoices that they receive from various vendors. Once the veracity had been checked, the information will be passed to the Engro employees for entry into the SAP modules. Not only have that, the payment recorded for the lost data were obtained from the bank and after going through a thorough check up, the payment were entered into that system.

  • The organization should always prepare and always take and follow the steps to avoid risk or reduce the severity of risk. The personnel from each committee of the business unit also should be included as members of the team and part of all disaster recovery planning activities. These people need to understand the business processes, technology behind those processes, networks, and systems in order to create the disaster recovery plan. After gone through the Disaster Recovery Plan, Engro can manage the IT infrastructure more effectively. If there is any similar incident occurs again, Engro could handle it wisely.
  • POST2

  There were many risks that Engro faced after the fire. One issues that could have come about is the need for the records that were destroyed in the fire. The hard-copy records relating to the financial years of 2004, 2005, and 2006 were ruined (Ahmed 2009) For audit or research purposes, the company may have needed those records and now they are gone with no way to recover them. The good thing was that the majority of the electronic data had remained intact.

  The purpose or objective of the Business Continuity Plan was to document the many recovery steps that were to be followed in order to resume IT operations as fast as possible (Ahmed, 2009)..  One of the aspects that were missing from the plans was how to recover in other functions other than IT. So for when the documents were ruined, there was no process in place in the plan that advised on ways to recover. Also, I feel that there should have been information added regarding where the plan can be found and how to access the plan if one is not in the building or if of course the building was not accessible.

  There are quite a few lessons to be learned from the case study that we read. One thing that I took away from it was how important it is to have a plan in the first place in case disaster strikes. In my current workplace, honestly, I am not sure if there is a plan in place in a fire  or other disaster were to happen such as with Engro. In the future, as a leader, I will be sure to not only develop a plan, but to sure it with employees as well. There is use in having a plan, if everyone is not on board. Another thing that stayed with me is how important it is to have a set policy in place for keeping copies. With Engro, some of the documents were ruined because of the fire. Again, in the future, I will be sure to follow the set policy regarding record keeping.