Frequently Asked Questions

Although IT has an important role to play in business continuity, the overall risk and responsibility will be carried by CFO/COO/GM on behalf of the CEO who is ultimately responsible for goodwill and shareholder value.

Many of Plan-b’s customers have considered the impacts of earthquakes and other civil-wide disturbance events when evaluating Plan-b. Plan-b does not guarantee coverage in the case of a natural disaster, as we cannot guarantee that our facilities will not be affected by a civil wide disaster. We have addressed previous disasters on a best endeavour basis, prioritising customers based on order of activation. However, as we have a national presence, we are able to assist with alternatives in other locations in case of a disaster in one region and we have recent experience in dealing with this scenario.

The types of events for which businesses would implement Plan-b are:

• Fire

• Water damage

• Fault or system failure

• Burglary

• Building access denial

Plan-b maintains enough facility for all customers within a particular building to have appropriate facilities entitlement. Plan-b does not oversubscribe facilities for localised events.

Like insurances, the benefit of implementing Plan-b only becomes apparent when you need to claim. The cost of Plan-b should be measured against the cost of downtime in a crisis. The recovery of a regular nerve centre can take 6 – 8 weeks and that is only if the backup is useful. System failure often extends beyond the expected few hours into days and weeks.

• What would be the cost if you were out of business for a day? A week? A month?

• What would the cost be to your business if you lost your financial / transactional / customer / email / intellectual property data?

• Would your business survive being unavailable to your new and existing customers or vendors for an extended period of time?

Many companies outsource their IT operations or have servers that are hosted externally or tele-housed. It is a common assumption that these kinds of arrangements also include an offsite contingency provision. Plan-b’s experience (and that of our customers) is that it is uncommon for contingency to be built into these types of arrangements unless specifically provisioned and paid for by the customer. There would be extensive costs associated with this kind of provision. If unsure the customer should check their contracts with the supplier. Plan-b can provide a cost-efficient contingency plan alongside an outsourced model.

The most regular activation of Plan-b is because of system faults or failures. However, we have also helped customers through water damage, air-conditioning issues, fire, electricity failure, inaccessible buildings, crime scenes, and employee sabotage.

If your business relies on critical data to operate, you need to ensure you can access that data should an unplanned outage affect you. If not well managed, the impact of such events on goodwill and shareholder value can be severe. For a manageable monthly fee you can ensure that your business critical data will be available in case of an interruption to your business and, if required, you can secure access to a place to work. Plan-b can manage your end-to-end business continuity requirements or just provide the pieces you need.

Plan-b's general Terms & Conditions are available under the "Plan-b Terms of Trade" section of our Customer Portal page.