Business Continuity plans are not complete unless you have done your due diligence as to the preparedness of your critical service providers. If they cannot perform, you may not be able perform as planned. A seemingly insignificant supplier can easily become a single point of failure for your entire organization. A 2008 survey by Continuity Insights Magazine showed that only 30% of companies include their third-party vendors in their plans and tests.
BNET designed the Corporate Emergency Access System (CEAS) with emergency access prohibitions in mind. CEAS is a public-private partnership created between local government and its business community to provide a simple means to allow critical business employees to gain access to restricted areas for the purposes of business continuity and recovery.
After a declared emergency CEAS allows you to:
- Rescue vaulted assets and vital records
- Power down networks, mainframes and servers.
- Retrieve laptops, servers.
- Refill Emergency generators with fuel
- Move key resources and personnel.
- Assess damage, begin restoration
- Call-in pre-qualified vendors
- Restore critical operations and customer services.
- Minimize financial loss
- Retain customers
During a recent snowstorm in Baltimore, City officials demonstrated just how important a tool CEAS could be. Operating under a Phase III Snow Emergency, with only public safety and utility vehicles permitted on the roads, the CEAS program was activated, allowing critical employee cardholders the ability to travel to their assignments as well. While snow storms are generally of a short duration, picture the benefits to having a CEAS card in an event that lasted 3 days, 5 days, a week or more.
Enroll now, enjoy the piece of mind and increased resiliency CEAS will provide your company.
