Farmside

Working from home not working, Farmside went to Plan‑b

After the September 2010 Christchurch earthquake, Farmside’s local staff tried working from home, but that didn’t work out as expected. Activating their Plan-b OfficeNOW facilities provided them with everything they needed to keep business running smoothly.

"We were impacted, but it was manageable. None of our customers even realised we were not in our regular office." - Ron Goodfellow, Chief Operating Officer, Farmside

Introducing Farmside

Farmside is New Zealand’s leading rural telecommunications provider, giving rural and provincial Kiwis access to telecommunications services. These include rural broadband via satellite, wireless and ADSL technologies, home phone line packages, webline (Voice over IP), mobile solutions and associated computer and networking equipment.

  Farmside is New Zealand’s primary IPSTAR satellite service provider, with nearly ten years experience in rural telecommunications. The company head office is in Timaru. In addition, Farmside has staff and contractors throughout the country, including an office of ten people in Christchurch.

Why they chose Plan-b

Farmside Chief Operations Officer Ron Goodfellow has always been a firm believer in business continuity planning. "We have revenue to protect. I just consider it as if you're buying insurance."

He chose Plan-b because he had worked with them before and was happy with the service he got.

Site loss has been part of the thinking from the outset. However, when crisis struck, it wasn't quite as expected. "The scenario we've had in mind was always that our Timaru head office may be inaccessible," says Ron. "Never in my wildest dreams did I think we'd use Plan-b for our Christchurch office."

Disaster strikes!

On 4 September 2010, a major earthquake struck Christchurch, making Farmside's local office unusable. First the building was declared off limits. After a few days, limited entry was allowed to retrieve essentials. However, due to the possible collapse of a nearby building, the office was declared out of bounds again later in the same week. This was to last for an indefinite period, leaving ten Farmside staff with no office facilities.

Attempted solution: Working from home

Farmside Chief Operating Officer Ron Goodfellow says at first they decided to simply work from home. "We're a transient bunch, used to working out of the office. Everybody has a mobile and a laptop, so we decided to work from home and meet occasionally in coffee shops as needed."

However, they found that working from home was disruptive and difficult.

"We're a tight-knit group. Working from home, the interaction between people wasn't happening. Phoning is not as easy as poking your head over the cubicle. We need to feed off each other's creativity to keep business flowing. Also, we've been through a stressful event, so wanted to keep people together and provide support to each other."

It didn't help that everyone's spouses and children were around either. "It's good for families to stay together, but for business it was difficult with all the distractions."

The solution: Go to Plan-b

With customers having to run their own businesses, Farmside had to be able to provide the expected services. "Two weeks after the quake I rung up Plan-b and said we wanted to move in. They said, no worries, turn up tomorrow."

Because of the way the Farmside office in Christchurch works, they didn't need a server recovered or one available on site. They just wanted office space and Internet connectivity as well as a professional place for meetings.

"We were given codes to get into the building, shown to our space and away we went. We made ourselves at home."

Initially, Farmside took half a dozen seats only, as not everyone was expected to be in the office at the same time. "Later we took more space, as it worked better for us. When there was vacant space, Plan-b let us use it. They were very flexible around that."

  Farmside operated from the Plan-b OfficeNOW facilities in Christchurch for three weeks, until 5 November.

Business impact

"If we hadn't had the facility to go to Plan-b, we would've had to find another office, get furnishing and connectivity sorted and also the many small things that turn an empty building into a working environment."

By going to Plan-b's ready facilities, Farmside avoided having to deal with these practicalities on top of an already difficult situation.

Lessons learned

As the person in charge of business continuity planning for Farmside, COO Ron Goodfellow says the experience around the earthquake reaffirmed that their approach was correct.

"What we need to do now is an exercise dry run from head office to make sure that everything does work," says Ron.

"If our office becomes unusable, we still have to be able to run our business, to be able to provide service to our customers, so they can keep doing what they do. That way, we'll still have a business when the crisis is over!"
- Ron Goodfellow, COO, Farmside.

About Plan-b

Plan-b is New Zealand’s largest dedicated business continuity organisation. We offer a full suite of solutions to manage your backup & data protection offsite; standby facilities to get you up and running; and assurance services to fully test & prove your recovery plans. Our offices in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch provide contingency services to more than 600 organisations. Since being founded in the 1990s, Plan-b has continued to focus on protecting businesses from unplanned events, and getting our customer’s back up and running quickly in a crisis.