IBM’s Management Plan Free Essay Example

IBM has smorgasbord technologies to run its global operations, systems and operations can have known and unknown risk, therefore, Plan B is important if anything uncertain. This document serves as anISCP that IBM Corporation to proactively respond to in uncertaintie.

This document is also considered as standard procedure that also consist of tasks and information. It is necessary to maintain this document and cover all the causes of interruption of Corporate IT Services service and necessary action to resume the service with less impact on business.

This is subset of IBM’s Management Plan and and helps the reader to get the enough information to contingencies that could impact operations of business, therefore considering sensitivity of the information, the plan is as Strictly Confidential and to be used only by concerned whose names will also be listed in this plan.

Prior to preparation of this Plan IBM’s management has confirmed that the service interruption can lead to business and financial loss, therefore they understand the importance of measure to be taken and a team is also formed whose structure is provided in the plan.

IBM Risk Management team also does risk analysis for known-unknown and preventive controls and mitigation of those risk associated with Corporate IT Services.

An important aspect of maintaining this plan is revision, periodical updates, training to concerned and must remain in as part of IT and Business operations. The plan is not one time, it must be revised, and revision log should be maintained.

Scope

This ISCP mainly covers Corporate Information System, maintained by Information Technology Department of IBM Corporation HQ in Network.

Data Center and related application and databases managed by IT Department of company.

Purpose

This plan is a guide to for recovery procedures for Information Systems maintained by IT Department of IBM Corporation. And Objective of this plan is to access the damage that can cause by the disruption of IT Services, activities, procedures and roles related to restoration operations.

Related Plans

This plan is integrated DRP, IRP, and/or BCP. Execution might activate all or some plans. To understand better below are contents of contingency planning;

Contingency Organization (CPTM)

Contingency is not a routine operation, therefore contingency planning management team (CPT) is required. Specific tasks and responsibilities are assigned to them which will be operational when the plan is executed. Once executed team will respond to the contingency by recovering/resuming the services or restoring the operations. Whereas recovery procedure for each system (critical or non-critical) provided in central repository, which will be accessible by team member who will respond to recovery/resumption/restoration of system under his responsibility.

Functional departments are taking care of routine operations, but contingency organization has various teams from functional departments. Overall decision is made by single authority and structure is supported by groups and mentioned in organization chart of Contingency Planning Management Team (CPTM) below;

Every team in CPMT have various responsibilities over all responsibilities as an organization are below;

• Protection of personnel and information assets
• Expertise to handle incident
• Management all activities related to respond, resume, recover and restore the systems.
• Coordination and communication between IT Department groups as mentioned in hierarchy or IT Department Teams.
• Immediate resumption of critical Information Systems and business processes.
• Structure reporting and response of all the incidents for each system.

Business Impact Analysis (BIA)

BIA needs to be conducted by distributing a questionnaire to determine the Financial Impact and Operational Impact on IBM’s business and in case Data Center facilities are available for an extended time. Main objective is to understand daily financial impact and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) related process and applications. As part of business continuity, Business impact analysis is conducted to ensure Mission critical applications and components list is prioritized after measuring the impact on business. The process to be used to conduct business impact analysis (BIA) is below;

Questionnaire :

Concerned are interviewed using a questionnaire form, to know the impact area, based on scoring from 0-4, the following areas are addressed;

• Cash Flow
• Competitive Advantage
• Shareholder Confidence
• Financial Reporting
• Regulatory
• Image/Reputation
• Employee Morale
•  Customer Service
• Employee Resignations
• Vendor Relations
•  Increases in Liability

To support above technology is also listed in form containing Hardware and Software including critical data and records to run the business processes. To calculate the impact, it is also important to know IBM’s peak months, days and hours.

Causes of the peak are mentioned in the survey form with the duration business process can effectively work without information systems. Then monthly impact is calculated from 0 -4 where 0 means no impact and 4 means severe impact.