- Natural Disasters Are on the Rise
- Even "Undamaged" Companies Can Go Broke from Disasters
- Applying New Science and Technology to Disaster Recovery
- Summary
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Like this article? We recommend
Like this article? We recommend
Applying New Science and Technology to Disaster Recovery
If natural disasters are defined as the intersection of phenomena and presence, science and technology can be employed to predict and possibly limit the overlap of these two principal components, thereby reducing their risks and impacts.
How can science and technology reduce risks? One obvious way is by improving the timeliness and accuracy of disaster warnings and what the military calls "4Ci" (command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence). Second, we could be doing a Lot more to model actual events (not just assumptions), given the thousands of data sources available today and with devices such as sophisticated satellite imagery. Finally, communicating those conclusions effectively to policymaking executives is the same challenge as always.
Statistical and historical disaster data, used in conjunction with indicators that truly and correctly estimate an organization's ability to respond and/or recover from disasters, is improving disaster management capabilities. These studies not only indicate what kinds of companies are most at risk but also precisely how they're at risk. The results can better support planning mitigation and policy decisions.
This includes not only the obvious issues, such as urban planners proactively limiting development in an area of risk, but benefits to private firms like yours. Before locating costly manufacturing plants and operations centers, science and technology allow these firms to take a look at the demographics, topography, and other infrastructure first. Firms looking to relocate call centers, for example, might want to check routing of undersea cables and whether the physical cable or terminating facilities are susceptible to seismic events or sabotage.
Today's science and technology can help to better visualize risk, so it stands to reason that they can help the contingency planner to better communicate risk. Executive management with responsibility for the enterprise as a whole is not opposed to disaster recovery. Executive management will fund a contingency planning effort. Management needs to know, however, that money spent on recovery planning is not simply thrown. Science and technology supports the need for this planning by visualizing what would otherwise be complex and voluminous data and presenting it in an understandable format from which sound conclusions can be drawn.