Business Technology Roundtable

Disaster strikes. Your primary place of business is destroyed by a fire tomorrow, are you prepared to recover? According to the historical statistics, fires permanently close 44 percent of the businesses that are affected. Business continuity planning is the creation and validation of a practiced logistical plan for how an organization will restore interrupted critical functions within a predetermined time after a disaster or extended disruption. Business Technology survivability is an imperative for many organizations that operate in the global networked economy, yet some are unprepared for a natural disaster. Cisco recently shared the results of an insightful nationwide survey. Informed, but Otherwise Unprepared The market study uncovered that while many organizations appreciate the increased employee productivity and other benefits offered by laptop computers, smart phones and virtual private networks, they may be unprepared to enable the majority of their employees to effectively t...

Having had their fill of the economic downside, business leaders are truly ready for the eventual upside. Apparently, U.S. companies are preparing for a global economic recovery to begin in the first half of 2010, according to a new "Road to Growth" market study from AT&T . Key study findings include the following insights: Business Agility and ROI Pressures In today's economic climate, U.S. companies have significantly shortened the time frame over which a Return on Investment (ROI) is delivered. More than half of U.S. IT executives stated they are under pressure to deliver a return on investment in half the time than their previous efforts. As a result, two-thirds cited that the change has affected their IT budgets, strategies and priorities. The study found that companies are less willing to invest in longer-term projects -- where the return does not come quickly. One CIO stated that IT projects must give at least a 100% ROI in 12 months -- otherwise, the project i...

You never know when an unexpected turn of events is going to keep you out of your office. You may not live in earthquake country, or a hurricane zone, or a tornado corridor, but that doesn't exempt you. Everything from fires to broken water mains to police actions can unexpectedly mean that you're suddenly not able to do business where you thought you would that day. Acquirent, an outsourced sales execution firm based in Evanston, Illinois, knows this all too well. When its eleven employees were told to evacuate the premises unexpectedly one day, they had no choice but to pack up and go. But the disruption was surprisingly minimal. Built-In Business Continuity Because Acquirent offers outsourced sales services, founder and CEO Pete Kadens had a high level of confidence in choosing an outsourced phone system. He had deployed Geckotech's hosted IP phone system , which meant that his telecommunications capabilities weren't even inside the affected location. "We all ju...