Continuity Planning 101 — A Continuing Educational Series

The DPCF educational series has always stressed using industry experts as a critical component for developing a business continuity plan. The addition of OSHA, EPA, HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley means that organizations are now held to stricter compliance and regulatory requirements which only adds to the complexity of the mix. Today, issues left unaddressed or improperly managed can quickly escalate to cause significant business risk.

Fusion Risk Management, headquartered in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, is a technology-enabled advisory consulting firm bringing years of top industry experience to the table. The five founding partners alone bring over 100 years of recovery, security and IT risk management experience and are credited with developing and implementing hundreds of plans and actual crisis events plus conducting thousands of test exercises. The Fusion team has combined their experience and ingenuity to develop a state-of-the-art approach to IT risk management which is why we are profiling their offering.

IT risk management, the emerging discipline which seeks to bring together multiple areas of risk into a comprehensive and well-managed program, is a daunting task for any enterprise. Nonetheless, it is vitally important as enterprises are more dependent on information technology as never before. “Vulnerabilities and threats are endless but the funds to address them are not,” states Fusion CEO, David Nolan. This defines the Fusion approach which recognizes executives must strike a balance between fiscal responsibilities while ensuring the business is adequately protected. To help accomplish this goal, Fusion developed the Fusion Framework™ methodology and software platform, which “fuses” such areas as security, recoverability, operational risk and compliance into one easily administered system. Fusion’s five-step process provides organizations with a metrics-driven understanding of its current and desired state of risk management maturity, while delivering an ongoing process for reporting the status, priorities and business impact of risk management investments.

Business continuity is more readily affordable than many organizations imagine. It is certainly much less expensive than the alternative since, without a plan in place, most organizations do not survive a major business interruption. Hopefully, this quick look at Fusion Risk Management will persuade you to consider evaluating your existing risk management plan.

For more information on the Disaster Preparedness Communications Forum please go to: http://www.tmcnet.com/disaster-planning/Default.aspx or contact Max Schroeder (News - Alert) at [email protected]. IT

Max Schroeder is the Senior Vice President of FaxCore (News - Alert), Inc. (www.faxcore.com [email protected]).

Rich Tehrani is the President and Group Editor-in-Chief at TMC (News - Alert).

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