Planning for Disaster

I am a business continuity analyst for Franklin Templeton Investments in Toronto, Ont. I help the company overcome unexpected events like blackouts, where the business needs to keep running and customers need to continue being served. We do this in two ways: No. 1: Technology. We make sure it's available in case of failures. No. 2: Business side. We make sure people can be in touch with one another even in less-than-ideal situations. To do both, you need to understand how the company runs, who is involved, what plays a part in buying a mutual fund, etc. We've run emergency exercises, but so far we haven't had to do much disaster recovery.

I graduated in 2004 from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario (No. 6 in BusinessWeek's International Top 10 Rankings). Ivey's curriculum stresses that a company is more than just a group of functional departments. This perspective is the basis of any business continuity plan. The plan must be able to recover cross-functional relationships and interdependencies. One course I found particularly helpful was Organizational Behavior that covered how companies are structured.

Despite this training, I'd never heard of a business continuity analyst until I applied for this position. I found the job through an independent search (see BusinessWeek.com, 5/23/05, "Stepping Onto the Right Career Path"). Business Continuity is a new field so job postings aren't abundant and companies do have problems finding people with the right skills. It may go by different names such as Risk Management, Disaster Recovery, or Crisis Management. In addition, smaller companies will combine the business continuity role with other responsibilities.

Here's how I spend a typical day:

7:00 a.m.—After breakfast, I check my investments. If I discover that I have reached millionaire status, I go back to bed. Otherwise, I get ready to go to the office. So far, I always end up at the office.

8:00 a.m.—Scheduled an early meeting today for 8:30 a.m. People from Toronto and several of our offices from around the world are attending. I tried to find a time that is convenient for everyone in differing time zones. In the end, I chose a time that was equally inconvenient for everyone.

8:30 a.m.—I present to all attendees a business continuity plan written in case one of our global locations experiences some type of crisis event. In this case, the assumption is that one of our global locations is unavailable for a week; whether it is due to a blackout or a networking problem doesn't matter...

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