Business Continuity planning essential to meet strict SLAs
Key Outcomes
- Business Continuity Plan aligned to best practices
- Compliance with business continuity requirements of a key client
- Real-life awareness of possible incidents
- Standby offices and equipment for core staff and infrastructure
- Onsite & offsite backups
- Tested ability to recover from backup
The Business Challenges
Ingram Micro pursued and was awarded a significant new contract to provide third-party logistics to one of New Zealand's largest enterprises. The contract included stringent requirements around business continuity, including:
- An approved Business Continuity Plan to ensure Ingram Micro could consistently meet the SLAs required under the new agreement (required within 90 days of the contract’s commencement).
- Confirmed business continuity plans with third-party service providers critical to Ingram Micro's own service offering.
- Ability to respond to phone calls and email an agreed timeframe in the event of a building access issue or telecommunications failure.
- 24/7 availability of IT infrastructure to allow uninterrupted receipt and processing of orders and provision of required reports.
With detailed service-level agreements to meet, Ingram Micro required the assistance of a trusted third-party to create a plan that would not only meet those requirements and align with best practices, but be understood, agreed upon, and make logical sense to the staff that would be required to enact it.
I prefer people who will partner to deliver a solution. Throughout the whole engagement with Plan B, I really felt they went well and truly above what I expected in terms of working on the consulting aspect rather than just selling.
Tony Lemmens,
GM Supply Chain Services for Ingram Micro
The Business Implications
Ingram Micro's new third-party logistics opportunity required a suitable business continuity plan be presented and accepted within 90 days of the contact’s commencement. The opportunity offered significant benefits to Ingram Micro, both financial and in terms of market-share, that made it important to pursue.
Providing supply chain services to a major New Zealand enterprise puts that enterprise's commercial reputation, and Ingram Micro's own, at risk in the event of a disruption to services. Reflecting this, the contract included provision for significant penalties if agreed service levels were not met.
The Solution & Business Benefits
Plan B worked with Ingram Micro to provide:
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1. Business Continuity Consultancy Service
Business Continuity Consultancy Service to assist Ingram Micro in assessing potential risks to its ability to meet SLAs, and in developing a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) to address those risks in line with best practices and the requirements of its new key client.
Ingram Micro now has a suitable BCP for its new business unit that has been accepted by key internal & external stakeholders. This plan allowed Ingram Micro to secure and meet its contractual obligations under its new key contract.
Plan B's business continuity consultancy offers independent advice, and is not involved in the sale or promotion of other Plan B services. However, as an outcome of its business continuity planning, Ingram Micro decided to utilise several Plan B services within its new business unit:
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2. Standby Offices
Standby Offices to provide a fully-equipped office for Ingram Micro staff in a Plan B recovery facility – complete with DDIs and fixed IP addresses for rapid switchover of phone and network services from Ingram Micro’s production environment.
If one of Ingram Micro’s business-critical offices is made inaccessible by a disaster or unplanned outage, key staff can be relocated to a Plan B recovery facility equipped with the necessary phone and network setup to continue servicing orders and managing distribution centre operations.
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3. Standby Equipment
Standby Equipment to ensure Ingram Micro has rapid access to critical server infrastructure during an unplanned outage or event.
Standby Equipment allows Ingram Micro to restore its most recent backup to servers held on standby by Plan B starting immediately from activation. This ensures minimal downtime in an event affecting the company’s production infrastructure with no delays waiting for new equipment to arrive.
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4. Online Snapshot
Online Snapshot to minimise data loss in the event of an outage or damage to Ingram Micro’s on-site server infrastructure, by capturing 15-minute snapshots to an on-site Plan B MediaAgent. Snapshots are copied offsite to Plan B’s secure private cloud via a dedicated communications link and ensure a very recent backup is captured.
Should Ingram Micro experience accidental data loss, data can be restored immediately from the onsite Plan B MediaAgent or from Plan B's private cloud. If Ingram Micro were to experience a larger outage or damage to its production servers, data could be restored to standby hardware in a Plan B facility.
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5. Server Recovery Exercise
Server Recovery Exercise to regularly test the restoration of Ingram Micro's critical production servers into a Plan B environment, identify new or previously unanticipated issues, and identify likely recovery timelines.
Annual recovery exercises are a requirement of Ingram Micro's key third- party logistics contract. Beyond satisfying the contractual requirement, regular exercises ensure Ingram Micro can prove its ability to recover from its backup and meet the timeframes outlined in the BCP.
Plan B's consultancy was very effective and efficient, and brought in-house a lot of subject matter knowledge. I think they have a very credible service offering there.
Tony Lemmens,
GM Supply Chain Services for Ingram Micro