Business Continuity Plan Keeps Systems, Data & Employees Safe at BMI
As part of BMI’s mission to provide consistent and reliable service to our songwriters, publishers and licensees, the company initiated a company-wide Business Continuity plan 10 years ago. This plan has been moved into action when a flood hit Nashville in 2010 and most recently last week when Hurricane Sandy made landfall in the New York metropolitan area. BMI’s Business Continuity plan ensures the ongoing operation of services by rerouting critical business systems and processes when necessary and by implementing a communications plan to keep all impacted employees up to date.
In a recent White Paper, Pitney Bowes describes Business Continuity Planning as follows:
Business Continuity Planning is now baked into corporate security planning, as businesses must keep functioning in the midst of all sorts of disruptive events. The primary goal of Business Continuity Planning is to help organizations stay in business by minimizing the impact upon clients, establish contingency plans to limit the impact of damage and mitigate losses. It’s more holistic than Disaster Recovery, because it looks not just at the event and its immediate aftermath, but at the implications of many potential scenarios. Business Continuity Planning provides a comprehensive, long-term approach involving not just data and IT infrastructure contingencies, but also planning for disruptions to physical plant or facility, materials and equipment.
As part of BMI’s commitment to best practices, a Corporate-Wide Incident Response Team (CIRT) made up of senior executives and the managers of physical plant and IT assets was formed in 2004. The CIRT team began tracking Hurricane Sandy last week as it approached the northeast. When it became evident on Sunday, October 28, BMI employees and the BMI Offices at 7 World Trade Center in lower Manhattan would be impacted, the decision was made to secure the facility and systems and close the office in advance of Sandy touching shore. BMI’s Information Services Group immediately began the process of remotely managing and powering down services and equipment in the NY office in preparation for major power outages. These actions made it possible for some BMI NY team members to work remotely via VPN when they had access to power and internet connections. In addition, CIRT deployed comprehensive communication vehicles to contact all affected employees and account for their safety. BMI’s senior executives met regularly via conference calls to closely monitor and manage the situation, As a result of these actions, there were no interruptions in operations or service and BMI New York team members were advised not to report to the BMI offices until lower Manhattan was stabilized and the majority of mass transit resumed
These extensive preparedness programs, a result of BMI’s advanced technology and human resources training, have enabled many of our NY employees to better address personal crises while allowing other employees to access virtual workstations wherever possible given surrounding conditions. These precautions have ensured that all systems, services, data and employees are secure. The company plans to reopen its New York facility shortly.
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