The impact on business continuity from the failure of outside utilities - Essay Example

The impact on business continuity from the failure of outside utilities: Case Study of New York Hurricane Business continuity in the aftermath of a disaster has become a critical planning tool in the modern business environment. Many organizations have taken it upon themselves to plan and prepare for any disruptive event, so that their businesses do not experience detrimental interruptions in the process. In the New York Hurricane Sandy, the magnitude of the disaster was clearly unexpected and thus could be described as a black swan event.

Those businesses which did not have a mitigation strategy found it difficult to pick up from the disruption, thus highlighting the need to take disaster planning an essential part of any business (Taleb 27). The main goal of disaster preparedness is to ensure an organization is kept up and running in the event that some interruption is encountered. For instance, the Hurricane Sandy disaster that destroyed New York City left many businesses damaged beyond repair, while those which had proper disaster mitigation plans managed to get back as quickly as possible.

The goal of such a plan is to ensure a contingency plan is in place in the event a problem occurs. In other words, a disaster recovery plan is to help organization continue with its services. When Hurricane Sandy swept across New York City shutting down many businesses, Goldman Sachs is one business which managed to mitigate and protect itself from the adverse impact of the disaster. When it was apparent New York City would not be spared of the hurricane menace, the business owner stacked bags around its head offices (The Economist).

By the time storm was settling, Goldman Sachs’ headquarters was one of the few offices that remained safe, dry and with proper illumination in the downtown Manhattan area. Even as firms such as Goldman Sachs prepared themselves to counter the disaster, a block away was a completely disrupted and flooded headquarters of Verizon with all its services interrupted. Verizon had its phone and internet cables all submerged, cutting off millions of services of the company. However, the firm managed to reroute most of its traffic through their other networks.

ConEdison, an electricity utility company which serves the city of New York had nearly a million of its customers with no electricity, when their underground equipments and power lines destroyed. Although the company had designed its facilities to sustain up to 3.8 metres of any tidal surge, the Hurricane Sandy surpassed this and hit 4.3 metres (The Economist). This interruption went for more than nine days, causing massive losses to businesses and individuals homes that relied on their services.

Hurricane Sandy is one of the disastrous events that clearly tested various firms’ ability to cope with unexpected disasters. In this case, it is noticeable that Goldman Sachs and Verizon managed to survive because of their proper preparedness and expansive business networks respectively. In other words, the two firms were able to put in place business continuity plans. This was not the case with ConEdison. Works Cited Taleb, Nassim. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable on Robustness and Fragility.

New York: Random House Trade, 2010. The Economist. Making it through the storm: Hurricane Sandy was another test of how well businesses can keep going when disaster strikes, The Economist, New York, Nov 10th, 2012.