Business Continuity Solutions

Mr. Philippe Jarre
Vice President
IBM Business Continuity and Resiliency Services
www.IBM.com
NYSE: IBM

SecurityStockWatch.com: Please give us an overview of your background and your role with IBM Business Continuity and Resiliency Services.

Philippe Jarre: In 2005, I was appointed IBM’s Global Vice President of Business Continuity and Resiliency Services (BCRS), a service product line of IBM Global Technology Services. With over 1500 experts around the globe, the BCRS division helps clients build, deploy, and manage the continuity of their business so they can minimize disruption while building a resilient organization.

Prior to this position, I was Vice President of IBM Global Integrated Technology Services and before this the Executive Assistant to the Senior Vice President of IBM Global Services in New York. I have also served as VP for BCRS Europe and was leading the successful acquisition of Schlumberger Business Continuity in 2004.

SecurityStockWatch.com: One will read on IBM.com that, “Our services go well beyond traditional disaster relief. We help companies build resilience into every layer of their business by anticipating the potential impact of a wide range of threats. IBM's business continuity solutions experts have identified three categories of threats that must be addressed in a continuity program. Our comprehensive portfolio addresses all three categories: business-driven, data-driven and event-driven." Please give us a summary of IBM’s capabilities in each of these three categories.

Philippe Jarre: Any comprehensive approach to business continuity and resiliency is going to include both proactive and reactive components. If clients plan well, they can deliver day-to-day value to the organization in terms of improved efficiency, higher service levels, increased satisfaction, more effective operations, more effective risk mitigation programs and greater alignment with regulations. Based on this, our offerings are designed to match three main areas of concern – business driven, data driven and event driven concerns.

On the more proactive end of the spectrum, IBM has business- driven approaches to continuity programs. Business continuity and regulatory compliance would both fit under the business-driven category.

• IBM Business Continuity Services can leverage our business process expertise and over 40 years of experience in disaster recovery to help clients identify and fill gaps in their current continuity strategy, and to develop and manage a program aligned to their business needs and to documented industry best practices.
• IBM Regulatory Compliance Services provides objective, industry-specific input regarding client exposure to regulatory risk—so clients can mitigate the danger of noncompliance while anticipating and responding competitively to changes in the regulatory landscape.

For many organizations data continuity is business continuity, but when it comes to protecting business-critical data, many organizations fall short. IBM offers data-driven services to help address these concerns.

• IBM High Availability Services are designed to help clients avoid the costs of downtime and recovery. Clients can rely on IBM for assistance in assessing, planning for, creating and running an infrastructure that supports the availability and performance objectives of their businesses, including access to business processes, IT environments and networks.
• IBM Data Continuity Services helps identify clients’ most critical business data and develop and implement a prioritized plan for its retention and retrieval. The plan is based on regulations and business needs—so information is available virtually anytime, anywhere—equipping employees, partners and customers with the tools they need for making decisions, driving revenue and reducing costs.

A lot of companies begin business continuity planning with disaster preparedness, because when a disaster does strike, what matters is how rapid and effective is their response and then how quickly they recover. For these concerns, IBM offers event-driven services:

• IBM Disaster Recovery Services are designed to help clients plan for and respond to a disruptive event. The service helps clients easily recover their business operations in accordance with their predefined service level objectives.
• IBM Crisis Management Services delivers an exceptional level of onsite crisis response experience to help clients prepare for, respond to and recover from emergency situations. Clients can rely on the support of a trusted teammate that can provide communications and coordination enablement services as well as trauma counseling and infrastructure repair and replacement. More