POST 1:

Business Continuity Planning

Large companies are at risk for many different types of breaches and loss of data or resources. For Engro Chemicals Pakistan Limited these risks did not come from a cyber-attack as one would suspect, but from a fire within the plant. This fire destroyed everything included the high quality servers used by the company to store information and operate daily. The loss of information put Engro at risk of losing orders and customer information as well as daily accounting figures and communication. To prepare for an event such as this, Engro prepared a Disaster Recovery Plan which detailed how they would set up the company in case of emergency to continue daily operations (Ahmed, 2009).

When the Disaster Recovery Plan was put into action, management made location changes which would help the company become operational faster while also spreading out the staff to different buildings. By changing the plan from one recovery location to four, IT was tasked with finding computing software such as workstations, laptops, wireless supplies, and printers (Ahmed, 2009). By contacting one of the company’s main vendors, the IT department was able to get the supplies needed to set up the infrastructure fairly quickly.

Engro was decided to deviate from the Disaster Recovery Plan because in the middle of an event with total loss, such as the fire, their plan needed modification. As management, we can take the steps needed to begin a plan in case of emergency or disaster but the plan is never going to be exactly what you need to do in the moment. Disaster Recovery Plans give you a good starting point and the ideas needed to move forward but most likely they will need to be adapted to meet the specific needs of the company after a disaster has occurred.

Overall, I believe Engro used their plan as an excellent method to start working towards becoming a functional company in the aftermath of a disaster. I believe spreading out departments into different buildings or houses was the correct thing to do. Employees are not going to function effectively if they are working in cramped, close spaces. I also believe with the real estate available to Engro, it would have been poor management to not utilize those spaces. In the event of a total loss fire in my company, I too would recommend using other offices of our affiliate companies as well as allowing some employees to set up a work-from-home station. I believe Engro set a good example of being able to adapt to meet the needs of their current situation.

Reference:

Ahmed, M. B. (2009). Engro Chemicals Pakistan Limited—Business disaster overcome. (Ivey

Publishing Case No. 909-E24). Retrieved from: https://services.hbsp.harvard.edu/services/proxy/c….

POST 2:

On Aug.19, 2017 at Engro Chemical Pakistan there was a fire in Engro head office which destroyed the company’s hard-copy data records which was related to the company financial years 2004/2005 and 2005/2006 from the periods of Jan. 1, 2017 to Aug.2017 which was included in the fire.However, this company had took a major loss and couldn’t recovery there document because they were destroyed in the fire, which was a total disaster. The desktop computers, serves, customer information and transactions of customers orders and all computer equipment was now destroyed. They lost everything in there head office. The I.T. develop the DRP that would recover from any disaster. The Management decided to change there plan and decided to use four locations. The guest house on one location in Karachi and there was two other guest houses that was also based for there HR functions and other accounting transaction. The develop the MIDAS system which was for the Engro Plant at Daharki was for a complete back up and the back servers was with the SAP software which was placed and was already installed and this was taken to the Baharia building for set up for critical accounting. The Managers of the I.T. wanted to make sure all of the facilities was in place and there. The DRP is a document of plan procedure’s to protect your business I.T. infrastructure in cause there is an event of disaster with in your company. The DRP was for the I.T. However, they was able to determine and plan for a new office building and they plan a better business plan for the company and also include DRP continuously in the business plan. In order for this company to be more successful they need to come up with some kind of back up plan for the next new office building in case there is another fire. This company needs some kind of systemic backup. Because there are natural disasters as well so they must be prepared. They could save the information on cds, floppy disks, portal jump drives or either get on-line automatic back up storage for files and records. Some companies are even investing in file cabinets to store information that can not be burned or destroyed.

References

https://www.thebalance.com

Ahmed, M.B. (2009), Engro Chemical Pakistan Limited-Business disaster overcome.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org