The concept of business continuity management has gained wide acceptance in recent years. Recent natural disasters such as the 2004 tsunami and terrorist activities such as the 911 World Trade Centre bombing, has emphasised the importance of business continuity management. Many of these events had catastrophic consequences, which left most executives faced with the challenge of improving the continuity of their organisation. Not to long ago, these executives were also faced with the challenge of managing their IT investments in such a way that it is aligned with the strategic goals of the organisation. An initiative referred to as IT governance was developed and IT governance frameworks instantly assisted executives to obtain direct business value from IT investments. The problem statement addressed in this research is the lack of a generally accepted business continuity management framework. This research aims to leverage of the success of IT governance in an attempt to establish the beginnings of a framework for business continuity management. In addition, the research also illustrates a paradigm shift where the enterprise continuity of a typical organisation has evolved from disaster recovery to business continuity management. The research approach executed is based on the interpretivism paradigm and is used to interpret the results of the research methodology and research method. The research methodology consists of a literature survey and empirical study whereas a content analysis is used as the research method. / Dissertation (M.Com (Informatics))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Informatics / unrestricted

This work covers process continuity as the source of a business continuity management. In first theoretic part this work connects continuous behavior of systems with the business continuity and the process continuity. Then in second part of the work we look into present knowledge in business continuity management systems and we cover key standards for business continuity management. We also look into connections among those standards for business continuity and we pinpoint chapters of British standard BS 25999-1 with its counterparts in IT service frameworks such as ITIL v3 and COBIT 4.1. In the final part, this work covers use of process analysis and process models as tools for delivering business continuity through process continuity and preparing business continuity plans in utilities.

Submitted by Nadir Basilio (nadirsb@uninove.br) on 2018-04-13T13:51:11Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Sergio Luis Mattos Melchiori.pdf: 799152 bytes, checksum: 928a40f78e66717cd04da8c96bb84fbb (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-04-13T13:51:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Sergio Luis Mattos Melchiori.pdf: 799152 bytes, checksum: 928a40f78e66717cd04da8c96bb84fbb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-05-25 / This study aimed to understand the conditioning factors that influence the effective recovery of the organization's critical activities. This research was done through a case study with exploratory type and qualitative and descriptive approach, with twenty business continuity professionals in a multinational insurance company. It was identified in the literature eight factors that influence the recovery of critical activities and their respective importance within the context of a business continuity project, and the factor simulated exercises was consider the least important and the business continuity plan the most important factor in the recovery of the company's activities. It was observed that the employees of the company’s case study, despite the support of senior management, had a low confidence in the resumption of critical activities, which is basically due to the factors: simulated exercises, which are not realistic enough; awareness programs, which does not include all those involved with business continuity; and the business continuity plan, which does not clearly show the resources and strategies that the company has in a holistic way. / Este trabalho teve como objetivo estudar os fatores condicionantes que influenciam uma eficaz retomada das atividades críticas da organização. Esta pesquisa foi feita por meio de um estudo de caso com abordagem qualitativa e descritiva do tipo exploratória, com vinte profissionais do ramo de continuidade de negócios de uma empresa multinacional do ramo de seguros. Identificou-se na literatura oito fatores condicionantes que influenciam a retomada das atividades críticas de uma empresa. Em seguida mediu-se suas respectivas importâncias no contexto de um projeto de continuidade de negócios. O fator condicionante exercícios simulados foi o fator menos importante e o plano de continuidade de negócios o fator mais importante na retomada das atividades críticas da empresa. Observou-se que os funcionários da empresa do estudo de caso, apesar do apoio da alta gestão, possuíam uma baixa confiança na retomada das atividades críticas, o que se deveu basicamente pelos fatores: exercícios simulados, que não são realistas o suficiente; programas de conscientização, que não engloba todos os envolvidos com continuidade de negócios; e o plano de continuidade de negócios, que não mostra claramente os recursos e estratégias que a empresa dispõe de uma forma holística.

Many small business owners lack strategies needed to prevent permanent business closure in the wake of extreme natural disaster situations. After a natural disaster, small businesses suffer financial losses in millions of dollars related to damage and destruction that disrupt their lives, families, and communities. This multiple case study explored strategies that 5 small business owners in northeastern Florida used to avoid permanent business closure in the aftermath of a natural disaster. The theory of planned behavior and vested interest theory were the conceptual frameworks used in this multiple case study. In-depth interviews with purposively selected small business owners were supplemented with a review of documentation from archival records. Yin's 5-step analysis guided the coding process of participants' responses, and member checking was used to validate the transcribed data. The major themes of the study revealed the owners' strategies relating to flood barriers, maintaining adequate insurance coverage, damage and destruction aftermath, and experience with natural disasters. This study's implications for social change include contributing to social stability and continuing economic growth by benefitting small business owners without a natural disaster plan or a plan that needs updating, new small business owners, and community organizations. This study may benefit small businesses by providing lessons learned on how to survive natural disasters.

This dissertation explores crisis management policies, programs, and training in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s premier airliners, Saudi Arabian Airlines. Saudi Arabian Airlines is a domestic and international carrier with a major role in the transportation of millions of Muslim pilgrims to the Kingdom during the annual Hajj season. This event places enormous strains on the capacity of the carrier, the airport, ground support systems, and the societal infrastructure of country. There have been tireless efforts by the Airline’s staffers to serve millions of visitors including pilgrims in a timely, safe and appropriate manner. Crisis management for Saudi Arabian Airlines includes assessment of natural and man-made risks in the firm’s operational environment, the development of a comprehensive response plan that includes training of staff at all levels of the firm, compliance with all relevant legal and regulatory mandates, and the use of effective response tools and systems. Saudi Arabian Airlines is viewed herein as best approached through the theoretical lens of Systems Theory, which speaks to the interdependency that exists within complex, multi-faceted systems. To identify the approach taken by Saudi Arabian Airlines to crisis management and to assess whether or not its response could be enhanced through additional planning, training or other strategies, a case study including review of relevant literature augmented by a survey of a sample of industry employees was undertaken. The survey instrument, coupled with an analysis of relevant crisis management protocols and practices including those recommended by organizations such as the International Air Transport Association was sued. The study identifies a need for additional training of the Airlines’ employees for a more effective crisis response

This thesis deals with possible interconnections between two concepts playing a big role in contemporary business and IT world. These concepts are Business Continuity Management and Cloud Computing. In the scope of this thesis there are certain areas identified where both concepts are complement, where Cloud Computing brings new opportunities for Business Continuity Management and where could possible problems arise during particular implementation. From the BCM perspective the impact lies on IT services, from the Cloud Computing perspective the thesis deals especially with security aspects. The thesis is also aimed at the characteristics of higher education and basic differences from commercial sphere. Based on defined differences and identified interconnections between BCM and Cloud Computing, the thesis argues for usage of suitable Cloud Computing solution for higher education regarding Business Continuity improvement. The multi-criterion comparison of several Infrastructure-as-a-Service solutions stems from this analysis focusing on technical, financial, and Business Continuity aspects. The result from this comparison together with conclusions from previous chapters serve as an input for subsequent practical proposal of Cloud Computing solution and its verification against Business Continuity improvement in specific conditions on University of Economics in Prague. The proposal is also represented by strategic map.

Greater Victoria, a conurbation of about 335,000 people located in southwestern British Columbia, Canada, is subject to significant seismic hazards. The major regional seismic factor is the offshore Juan de Fuca tectonic plate, subducting beneath North America along the 1,100 km-long Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ), a megathrust fault. This environment generates three types of potentially damaging earthquakes—shallow, subduction, and deep. This research examines how the Transfusion Medicine (TM) component within transfusing facilities in Greater Victoria and the balance of Vancouver Island might function following these types of earthquakes. A shallow earthquake of magnitude (M)7 or greater that occurs near enough could heavily damage critical infrastructure in Greater Victoria. Decisions regarding the alternatives of (a) rapidly relocating a facility for storing and/or processing blood products within or near Greater Victoria or (b) transporting people injured in an earthquake to transfusing hospitals in or beyond Greater Victoria, or (c) both (a) and (b), may need to be made within the first few hours following a locally destructive earthquake. A subduction event (M8 to 9.2) in the CSZ could reduce or halt production of blood products in nearby Vancouver, diminish the supply of stored blood in southwestern coastal British Columbia, and sharply increase demand for blood products. Post-subduction-event conditions would likely result in a temporary shortage of blood products in at least two regional health authorities, and would test the response of a few key related functions within smaller, more remote health care facilities. A subduction event also would impact ground transportation routes, airports, and wharves, making the transportation of blood products to and around Vancouver Island more difficult. The researcher interviewed several professionals whose work supports the blood contingency emergency response by the Canadian Blood Services, the Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA), and the British Columbia Ministry of Health, to obtain information that could help maintain the TM function in post-quake circumstances. To prepare informants to answer questions regarding the health care implications of these earthquakes, the researcher generated--per earthquake type--order of magnitude estimates of the numbers of hospitalizations that would likely result in Greater Victoria or/and Vancouver Island. The study examines the inventorying and transportation of blood products, some communication, decision-making, and blood product distribution considerations—plus the hazard mitigation and vulnerability reduction aspects—that could be included in an earthquake-specific blood contingency plan for VIHA transfusing facilities. It also considers how VIHA could sustain the function of the TM Laboratory role within transfusing hospitals during post-earthquake circumstances in which some of their facilities for storing, monitoring, analyzing, or transfusing blood products are inoperable. The risks of damaging earthquakes, and accompanying tsunamis affecting populated areas and health system assets in coastal British Columbia, are real. Implementing the recommendations of this study may help various players involved in the regional processing, distribution and allocation of blood products to: (a) define a more efficient response to earthquake impacts upon their operations, (b) reduce injury to people and damage to crucial equipment used in the health system, and ultimately, (c) save lives. / Graduate / 0769 / 0368 / 0766 / sanderson.b1@gmail.com

Enterprises during their operation are impacted many threats and risks that could dramatically affect their business. Business Continuity Management has evolved to provide resistance against the eternal operational risks. BCM aims to ensure business continuity in case of its danger. The goal of this thesis is to apply the selected methods of the BCM into emergency planning, which is regulated by legislatively for businesses in the Czech Republic.

La gestion de la continuité des opérations est un cadre complet visant à éviter que les événements perturbateurs n’affectent les opérations commerciales, à rétablir rapidement les activités et à réduire les dommages potentiels correspondants pour les systèmes énergétiques, tels que les centrales nucléaires. Cette thèse propose des discussions sur les aspects suivants: développement de méthodes appropriées d'évaluation des risques afin d'intégrer les données de surveillance de l'état et les données d'inspection pour une mise à jour et des pronostics robustes et en temps réel du profil de risque. Pour tenir compte de l'incertitude des données de surveillance de l'état, un modèle de mélange gaussien de Markov caché est développé pour modéliser les données de surveillance de l'état. Un réseau bayésien est appliqué pour intégrer les deux sources de données. Pour améliorer l'applicabilité de la continuité des opérations dans la pratique, les variables variant dans le temps considèrent l'indice de continuité des opérations, par ex. la dégradation des composants, les revenus en fonction du temps, etc. sont pris en compte dans le processus de modélisation de la continuité des activités. Sur la base de l'indice de continuité d'activité proposé, une méthode d'optimisation conjointe prenant en compte toutes les mesures de sécurité dans le processus d'évolution des événements, y compris les étapes de prévention, d'atténuation, d'urgence et de récupération, est développée pour améliorer la continuité des opérations du système avec des ressources limitées. Les méthodologies proposées sont appliquées aux centrales nucléaires contre les événements perturbateurs. / Business continuity management is a comprehensive framework to prevent the disruptive events from impacting the business operations, quickly recovering business and reducing the corresponding potential damages for energy system, such as nuclear power plants (NPPs). This dissertation provides discussions on the following aspects: developing appropriate risk assessment methods in order to integrate condition monitoring data and inspection data for a robust and real-time risk profile updating and prognostics. To account for the uncertainty of condition monitoring data, a hidden Markov gaussian mixture model is developed to model the condition monitoring data. A Bayesian network is applied to integrate the two data sources. For improving applicability of business continuity in practice, time-variant variables regard business continuity index, e.g. component degradation, time-dependent revenue, etc are taken into consideration in the business continuity modelling process. Based on the proposed business continuity index, a joint optimization method considering all the safety measures in event evolvement process including prevention stage, mitigation stage, emergency stage and recovery stage is developed to enhance system business continuity under limited resources. The proposed methodologies are applied to NPP against disruptive event.

SpaceX as aerospace manufacturer and space transport service technology company work along to make reusable rockets, their long term plan is to make spaceflight affordable routine. Elon Musk, as CEO, is involved in every step of decision making as he has mentioned in interviews. The rocket's engine has undergone a number of improvements, and to increase its efficiency and power, a number of parts has been reduced. The redesigning process involves several decisions, such as in-house or out-source production. This research provides a practical framework for contractors, suppliers, and manufacturers to build a more reliable, affordable, and low cost supply chain. As a result, the objective of my dissertation is to explore how managers can extend the useful life of their assets and reduce their total cost of ownership. The main research focus for this dissertation is lifecycle affordability (LCA) for capital intensive products when post production costs are significantly higher than production costs. Lifecycle cost is often not considered by firms in a product, service or asset when making acquisition decisions. Firm's acquisition are mainly based on the initial cost of the product. Decision making without considering the entire lifecycle cost of a product impacts the firm's profitability, revenue, pricing strategies, and competitiveness. Evaluating the trade-offs between all the costs involved in the product lifecycle can help firms to have an estimation of costs before making any acquisition decisions. To address these challenges, lifecycle affordability (LCA) considerations can enable firms to focus their decisions on their long-term investment process rather than trying to save on initial cost of purchasing a product. This dissertation presents the following research question: how has lifecycle affordability been represented in supply chain research to date? And what are constructs of lifecycle affordability? To address this research question, the dissertation is comprised of three separate essays. The first essay conducts literature review method to provide a framework for lifecycle affordability that reduces the total lifecycle cost while maintaining the reliability and efficiency of the capital equipment, and identify existing research gaps and future LCA research ideas. The second essay is constructed on a survey-based method and investigations how homeowners' lack of understanding lifecycle cost, and long-term affordability affects their dissatisfaction with the home purchase. A regression model is developed to study the factors that explain Homebuyers' lack of understanding cost, and affordability considerations. The third essay developed an agent-based model (ABM) to study small medium businesses (SMB) when the business organization and the community is hit by a disaster. The objective of the study is to investigate the resiliency and lifecycle affordability management of the community and the small medium businesses.