Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Funding Request Presentation

Disaster Recovery Plan Template
Business Continuity
ISO 27000,
Sarbanes - Oxley, COBIT
PCI-DSS & HIPAA Compliant

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How to request funding for DRP BCP

In these tough economic times how can CIOs get the budget necessary to support Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning.

The following steps should be taken when planning a presentation seeking to gain management support of a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity program.

• Define the scope, objectives, and requirement - It is not enough to have an objective of getting more funding or gaining executive support. Define exactly how much funding is needed, or exactly what form the executive support should take.
• Verify expectations - Define what management's expectations for the meeting are.
• Focus on business continuity - It makes more sense to get the commitment for resources to achieve a 24-hour recovery time objective (RTO) than to demand the resources for a two-hour RTO and get nothing. The most common risks are the mundane ones - power failures, hardware failures, software failures, network failures and human errors - and it's easier to calculate the likelihood of one of those incidents than it is to predict a natural disaster.
• Anticipate objections - realize that the number one objection is the cost, and prepare accordingly. Let the results of the business impact analysis (BIA) justify the "investment" (not "cost").
• Prepare a competitive analysis - Executives care what their competition is doing. Annual benchmark studies and surveys are good sources of information on the investments in DPR/BCP being made by industry, by size of organization, etc.
• Prepare examples of what has happened to others - Remind the executives of the regulations that affect their business, and the impact of not complying with them. Examples of such regulations are Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley. In addition,  research companies that have been damaged significantly in highly publicized news stories because of their failure to act responsibly.
  • Talk to your insurance company. Insurers maintain reams of statistics about likely incidents and their associated costs to get a sense of how risky it is to insure a particular company. Your insurer might be willing to share some of that data.
  • Check government Web sites. Government agencies will have historical data on events that have occurred in your area. The U.S. Department of Energy, for instance, provides statistics on power outages by location. The Department of Transportation keeps statistics on incidents involving hazardous materials. If you need data about incidents in other countries, one resource is the Web site of EuroStat, the European Union's official statistical agency.
• Define the Risk/Reward of DRP/BCP - Research and develop the business continuity program's return on investment.
• Package Resources - Work with vendors like Janco Associates who can package infrastructure solutions like the Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Template to accelerate the process and minimize the cost.
• Get buy-in for key decision makers before you meet to ask for a decision - The effort will have greater success if key decision makers and other departments within the organization support the DRP/BCP program. The power of a presentation supported by key executives, marketing, IT security, physical security, human resources, facilities, and risk management is highly significant.

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The DRP template is over 200 pages and includes everything needed to customize the Disaster Recovery Plan to fit your specific requirement. The electronic document includes proven written text and examples for the following major sections of a disaster recovery plan:

• Plan Introduction
• Business Impact Analysis - including a sample impact matrix
• DRP Organization Responsibilities pre and post disaster - drp checklist
• Backup Strategy for Data Centers, Departmental File Servers, Wireless Network servers, Data at Outsourced Sites, Desktops (In office and "at home"), Laptops and PDA's
• Recovery Strategy including approach, escalation plan process and decision points
• Disaster Recovery Procedures in a check list format
• Plan Administration Process
• Technical Appendix including definition of necessary phone numbers and contact points
• Job Description for Disaster Recovery Manager (3 pages long) - entire disaster recovery team job descriptions are available
• Work Plan to modify and implement the template. Included is a list of deliverables for each task. (Risk Assessment and Vulnerability Assessment)

There is a extensive section that show how a full test of the DRP can be conducted. It includes

• Disaster Recovery Manager Responsibilities
• Distribution of the Disaster Recovery Plan
• Maintenance of the Business Impact Analysis
• Training of the Disaster Recovery Team
• Testing of the Disaster Recovery Plan
• Evaluation of the Disaster Recovery Plan Tests
• Maintenance of the Disaster Recovery Plan

Click on the link below to get the DRP/BC sample pages now and make it part of your disaster recovery toolkit.

Order DRP BCP Template  Sample DRP BCP Template

Order DRP BCP Template  DRP BCP Sample