Case Study Paper Sample: Business Continuity at Tulane University

An integral and essential part of a business continuity plan is the fact that there is minimal disruption or closure of a business in the case of occurrence of a disaster. Furthermore, this business continuity plan helps firms and institutions resume their firms within the shortest time possible in the event of an emergency. The following essay thus focuses on the impact that hurricane Katrina had on the University of Tulane and the additional measures that the university athletic department could have implemented to assist in the recovery and business continuity efforts.

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First and foremost, they should have focused on the risk. The department should have done a risk assessment of the athletic department its members in the case of a disaster like this happening at the university. One of the primary focuses of a business continuity plan is the risks that are involved in the case of an accident happening. Hence a risk assessment plan would have helped the department be ready and prepared for any form of disaster. They would have known what to save first and how to recover it within the shortest time due to the report on the risk assessment.

Secondly, they should have looked at the core units of the department and made them a priority when it came to the recovery options. A good business continuity always strives to ensure that there are endless activities at the institution even after damage. Therefore, prioritizing the units at the units at the department from the most crucial ones to the least crucial ones would have helped a significant way when it came to the recovery process. Most of the times the most core unit is the one that holds most of the information at the department and therefore making it a priority and recording it could save the department a significant loss (Zeng, Zio, 2017).

Another essential part of business recovery is the disaster recovery plan. This is what takes plan after the actual incident has taken place, in our case the hurricane Katrina. This part narrows in on the infrastructure and also the technology. For example, in the case of Tulane University, most of the sports infrastructure was damaged, and the athletic department started recovering from scratch. However, with a good disaster recovery plan in action, they could have ensured that the sporting activities resumed within the shortest time possible.

This could have been achieved by looking for a backup plan. This means that they should have put in place grounds or grounds where they could train even though it could have been in the next state. This could have ensured that the athletes continued playing and teaching even after the disaster. They should have also looked for alternative housing options for the staff and also the trainees. They should have ensured that the staffs and trainees contact information was well placed and ready for recovery in the case of a disaster (Robles, Choi, Cho, Kim, Park, Lee, 2008).

Most of the times athletic department usually keep plans, diagrams and so on, which they use on a daily basis to guide them. They should have therefore set aside duplicate of these plans in a safe place so that they could be able to recover their work. The critical information recovery site is the cloud. The department should have invested heavily in an ethical cloud system that would have helped them store all the information about their department. From the games, they played, to their plans, to their contact information and to even their annual budgets. All this are documents that could have been digitized and saved to the cloud.

This would mean that after the disaster all they could have needed would have been accessing to the internet so that they could recover their documents and commence right from where they left off. Therefore, in the future, the department should ensure that everything they do on a daily basis and every information they require is backed up to the cloud.

Moreover, another crucial thing the department could have looked into would be a good communication strategy in the case of a disaster. For example, what they could do when the cell towers were down, and there was no way in which people could communicate. This could have been achieved by setting up a remote recovery center where in the case of an emergency then everyone who would have survived the incident would go and be assisted. The implementation of this strategy could have been possible by testing this communication plan by the provision of a drill at the department.

In addition to that, athletes most important tool is their bodies. This should be guarded at all times. Therefore, in the case of the disaster, they should have put on speed dial qualified physicians who specify in treating an athlete's body just in case any harm would have come to them. Establishing good relationships with other universities nearby and even far away that would help accommodate the students in the case of a disaster is also a good business continuity and recovery plan (Zalewski, Sztandera, Ludzia, Zalewski, 2008).

The most important part of having a business continuity plan is testing that the recovery plan is working. The department should, therefore, ensure that they perform disaster drills from time to time to check the preparedness of the department in the case of a disaster. This drill also helps them to evaluate how prepared the department is in the fact if a catastrophe. It serves as attaching moment for both the recovery implementation team and even the staff and the athletes. This also provides an opportunity to update their plan and correct what might not be working well.

In conclusion, it is essential to embrace a working business continuity and recovery plan because as much as people are always avoiding danger and not wanting to think about it, sometimes these natural occurrences are inevitable and it is, therefore, essential to always be prepared in case of anything.

References

Robles, R. J., Choi, M. K., Cho, E. S., Kim, S. S., Park, G. C., & Lee, J. (2008). Common threats and vulnerabilities of critical infrastructures. International journal of control and automation, 1(1), 17-22.

Zalewski, A., Sztandera, P., Ludzia, M., & Zalewski, M. (2008, September). Modeling and analyzing disaster recovery plans as business processes. In International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability, and Security (pp. 113-125). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Zeng, Z., & Zio, E. (2017). An integrated modeling framework for quantitative business continuity assessment. Process Safety and Environmental Protection, 106, 76-88.