Business Continuity

For the blogging on business continuity I though the first thing that should be done is to define the term. Here is a good explanation I found on the website www.globalvoice.com/index.asp:

"Business continuity describes the processes and procedures an organization puts in place to ensure that essential functions can continue during and after a disaster. Business continuity planning seeks to prevent interruption of mission-critical services, and to re-establish full functioning as swiftly and smoothly as possible"

The first business continuity plan I found was for a company called Investors Capital Corp. Their plan "defines critical functions, staff assignments, resource requirements, vital records, and alternative work site locations related to restoring business operations with minimal impact"

The second business continuity plan I found was for Harbert Management Corp. The key elements of their plan, which is listed in full at the link provided, includes maintaining evacuation plans, maintaining an emergency contact list, and backing up critical data daily.

Lastly, the third business continuity plan I found was for First Financial Equity Corporation. Their business continuity plan stated the following:

"In short, our business continuity plan is designed to permit our firm to resume operations as quickly as possible, given the scope and severity of the significant business disruption."

Communication with employees is an integral part in all of the business continuity plans I came across. It is vital that a socially responsible company take care of it's employees and their needs, not just their customers, in a time of crisis.

I believe to have good business continuity plans a company must provide numerous lines of communication for employees. The companies also should provide a emergency list of off-site contacts, , to all employees, so that everyone has an opportunity to find out what is going on.

The Center for Disease Control defined isolation as the following:

"Separation of an ill person who has a communicable disease from those who are healthy. Isolation prevents transmission of infection to others and also allows for the focused delivery of specialized health care to ill persons"

Their definition for quarantine is:

"Separation or restriction of activities of well persons who are not ill but who are believed to have been exposed to a communicable disease and are therefore at high risk of becoming infected."

Employee activity would vary greatly between the two because for isolation only a single person, known to be ill, would have to be removed from a workforce. However, when considering a quarantine, large amounts of people can be removed from a workforce, whether they're sick or not.

Brandon

Week 7 Blogging

For this blog entry, covering the questions from Chap. 6, I found some of the following information:

2. The first part of this question asked about businesses that were seen as some of the most ethical. To answer this question I found the list from Business Ethics website:

The first on the 100 best corporate citizens was a company called Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. The company offered the following statement, concerning their purpose and principles, on their website:

"Green Mountain Coffee Roasters is a values-driven company that views profit as a means to achieve a higher purpose. We allocate 5% of our pre-tax earnings to social and environmental causes and focus on our Company Purpose and Principles in business operations. We are motivated to achieve success because the more profitable we are, the more good we can do in the world. "

The second company on the 100 best corporate citizens list was Hewlett-Packard, a computer company based in Palo Alto, Calif. Their website had the following statement on their website about the importance they place on diversity in the workplace:

"Creating a diverse, inclusive environment has been an ongoing journey of continuous action for many years. It has been a journey guided by deeply held values. Today, our diversity vision is one of global proportions. One that requires courageous, bold actions from many people throughout the world. We are proud to share what we have learned along the way and the aspirations we are actively working to achieve."

However, with all the good these business are doing there will always be another side to the coin and you will have companies that are considered unethical. Some of the more recent companies to have been called into question by the media have been companies such as Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, and my least favorite Wal-Mart.

While the unethical behavior may vary between each of these companies, the fact remains that many instances, by each of these companies, have been documented showing their unethical behavior.

6. This question talked about CSR, or corporate social responsibility, and whether companies who were well thought of for placing a high value on CSR were likely to influence purchasing decisions.

I feel that a great place to start for this question is the same website that lists the 100 Best Corporate Citizens of 2006.

The companies featured on this list, which included Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc., H-P Co, Motorola, T.I., Nike, Starbucks, etc.., are companies that ranked high in a slew of categories. The categories that the companies were ranked were Community, Corporate Governance, Diversity, Employee Relations, Environment, Human Rights, Product, and Total Return.

I, for one, do feel that the way a company is viewed, as far as CSR goes, does influence my purchasing behavior. Although I wish I could say that all of the purchases I make are from socially responsible companies, I'm honest with myself, and I really can't.

However, knowing a companies behavior on a responsibility level does really influence my purchasing behavior, as I hope that it would everyone elses.

Brandon

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Department of Homeland Security

After reading the case study and viewing the Homeland Security document, I don't feel my perception of the whole system has changed. The bureaucracy that permeates every aspect of our government has been something I've always been cynical about.

My main problem with the entire idea of a color-coded system, which supposedly describes the threat level to our country, is that it's a waste of our country's resources. When the nation's threat level is raised from yellow (elevated) to orange (high) what does that really mean?

The answer is that it could mean different things for different places. But, that is the flaw of the system. The people in the D/FE metroplex may be wasting our resources on threats that don't exist for our area.

And, while I do like the idea of a unified message being sent out, I also think that it's impractical for a country of our size to treat a threat the same in New York City as we do a threat in Topeka, Kansas.

However, I can see the other side of this as well. The idea of localizing a threat to a specific area would cause mass panic in that area, which is not something a city should have to deal with if the threat was false in the first place.

My life, and the lives of many other people, changes very little, if any, when the threat level is raised from gaurded to elevated. While I don't believe that the current system is working, I also don't have a respectable alternative.

But, being the cynical person that I am, I feel the current system will stay in place until the government finds a better way, at least in the eyes of the citizens, to pick and choose the information that is getting out to us.

Brandon Brooks