Disaster Recovery Journal Fall 2024

Forging Resilience: Identifying Critical Business Functions As climate impacts intensify, building robust operational resilience and dynamic business continuity programs is essential for safeguarding critical operations and ensuring long-term sustainability. Risk practitioners must identify and map their crucial business processes, important services, crown jewel technology assets, essential vendors, and key personnel. This comprehensive understanding forms the foundation for a resilient operational framework that is capable of withstanding natural disasters. Meticulously documenting and ana lyzing critical business processes and services, understanding workflows and dependencies, and evaluating each func tion enables the development of effective contingency plans and mitigation strate gies. From payroll and accounts payable to international sales and customer-facing

services, this analysis ensures the continu ity and resiliency of mission-critical oper ations during periods of disruption. Sustaining Continuity: Supporting Remote Teams and Assessing Risks In this era of distributed work forces, organizations must consider the unique risks remote employees face. Understanding the specific natural disas ter threats each remote essential worker may encounter is crucial for ensuring employee safety and business continuity. Organizations can identify key person nel whose absence could disrupt criti cal operations by mapping employees to their respective business processes and services. This awareness enables com prehensive contingency plans, such as cross-training employees and providing backup power solutions, enabling organi zations to maintain operational continuity

even when natural disasters impact remote employees. Effective business continuity and oper ational resilience also requires thorough risk assessments for existing and prospec tive facilities. Organizations must evaluate natural disaster threats, their likelihood, and their projected impact on each site, including third-party vendors and data centers. Comprehensive risk assessments allow for informed decisions to be made about site selection, facility hardening, and disaster recovery planning. The Imperative for Climate Preparedness The escalating impacts of climate change present an existential threat to organizations. Proactively addressing climate risks through strategic planning, technological innovation, and operational resilience initiatives can safeguard an orga nization’s long-term viability. Prioritizing climate change preparedness, embedding risk considerations into decision-making processes, and fostering a culture of resil ience enables organizations to enhance their agility and mitigate disruptions. This imperative extends beyond indi vidual organizations, requiring cross industry collaboration, policy reforms, and a collective effort to address the root causes of climate change. The window for action is closing, making it crucial for business leaders and decision-makers to embrace this challenge urgently. By doing so, we can ensure the continuity of our operations and pave the way for a more resilient, proactive, and sustainable future. v mentation, and management of enterprise-wide risk, operational resiliency, and recovery programs and strate gies. Greenstein brings more than 35 years of expertise in enterprise technology risk management, program and project solutions, and professional services. He earned a dual bachelor’s degrees in accounting and economics from the City University of New York (CUNY) at Queens College. He is also a current member of the Business Continuity Institute (BCI), Disaster Recovery Institute (DRII), Association of Continuity Professionals (ACP), and InfraGard organizations. Steve Greenstein, CBCI, is a seasoned senior advisor and go-to-market subject matter expert at Fusion Risk Management. He partners with Fusion’s clients to think through the design/development, imple

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24 DISASTER RECOVERY JOURNAL | FALL 2024