Analysis Of Disaster Recovery Plan For FedEx Organization

Disaster Recovery Plan

Organizations exist in dynamic environment that provide opportunities for growth and advancement. Alongside the increased opportunities, organizations also face increased risks and threats that could jeopardize their business opportunities. Organizations therefore need to be watchful by implementing measures that would protect them against the risks. However, it may not be possible to fully protect organizations as some disasters may still occur regardless of the organization’s level of preparedness. While an organization may not have control on the disasters, it can implement measures that would reduce the extent of loss accrued as a result of disasters. Below is a disaster recovery plan for FedEx that would reduce loss and damages in the event of a disaster.

FedEx’s Need for a Disaster Recovery Plan

FedEx Corp was hit by a disaster after it was hit by a cyber attack that affected its operations. The event occurred in 2017 when the company’s operating systems were hacked, causing slow processes and forcing some of the company’s operations to be carried out manually. The disruptions caused a halt in the company’s activities and disrupted normal business processes. As a result, the company incurred losses emanating from lost sales, technology investments, and recovery costs (Schlangestein, 2017). According to Rechtin (2017), most organizations rely on technology and automated systems, and their disruption for a few days may undermine the organizations’ financial performance and sustainability. Similarly, FedEx is estimated to have lost up to $300 million in the cyber attack(Schlangestein, 2017). The presence of a disaster recovery plan could have minimized the losses incurred by the company be enforcing business continuity.

Goals of the Disaster Recovery Plan

The main goal of the disaster recovery plan is to reduce interruptions to normal operations. Businesses may experience disasters that affect all or parts of their operations. Businesses stand to lose a lot of money when their activities are interrupted as they cannot gain access to information needed for completing day-to-day tasks (Rid & Buchanan, 2015). FedEx faced the same situation as it its computer systems were affected by the hackers who slowed down the company’s operations. The company had to result to manual processes which were considerably slower, which consequently affected the completion of tasks. Customers who were unable to gain entry into the system got frustrated and refrained from using the company’s ecommerce systems. For this reason, FedEx experienced reduced revenues during the attack(Schlangestein, 2017).

The presence of a disaster recovery plan could have enabled FedEx to resume business operations in a prompt manner. Without a recovery plan at hand, the company faces challenges in trying to resume normal business operations. If the company has not identified a recovery plan and the individuals responsible for executing it, it wastes a lot of time in making plans when the disaster has already occurred. A disaster recovery plan is therefore beneficial as it establishes an alternative way of operations in advance (Sahebjamnia, Torabi, & Mansouri, 2015). FedEx incurred losses due to the cyber attack as the company had not prepared an alternative way of operation, and it had to result to normal operations that were not effective in completing all the required operations. Had the company identified an alternative solution beforehand, its processes would have resumed normalcy as the company would have used backup systems when its main systems were affected.

Steps in Implementing a Disaster Recovery Plan

Management Commitment

The first step in the implementation of a disaster recovery plan is ensuring that relevant stakeholders are committed in supporting the plan. The organization’s management makes up one of the most important stakeholders in the disaster recovery plan. The management not only provides the authorization for the implementation of a disaster recovery plan; but it is also responsible for providing the required resources and monitoring the performance of the recovery plan (Wallace & Webber, 2017). With regards to FedEx, the company’s management needs to be committed in making the plan work. The CEO, CFO, managers in all the departments, and supervisors need to share in the objective of creating a sustainable disaster recovery plan. The management needs to be made aware of the benefits of the recovery plan on the organization. Financial and productivity reasons can be presented as justifications to gather their support of the disaster recovery plan.

Establishment of a Planning Committee

After the management has provided its authorization, a planning committee should be formed to head the development and implementation of the plan. As determined by Cook (2015), the planning committee should involve representatives from each department within the organization as they would be best suited to ensure that the unique needs of each department are reflected in the disaster recovery plan. The committee may also include external members such as professional consultants who will provide input on the best practices to be implemented in the plan. Another factor to consider when forming the committee is that representatives from each department will be tasked with familiarizing their department members on the particulars of the plan (Sahebjamnia, Torabi, & Mansouri, 2015). They will act as change agents who will create a need for change and showcase how the project will improve operations.