Disaster recovery training

It is almost inevitable that at some point, a business or organization will experience a serious calamity that may hinder it from carrying out its normal day to day business operations. Such calamities may include computer malfunctioning, accidents, floods, fires, grievous acts, among others. When disaster strikes, it is important for the organization to have a proper disaster recovery plan that will help the business significantly reduce the losses incurred and recover within a short time frame.For this reason, this organization has set up a talented disaster recovery planning team which will cater for such eventualities. However, even as the expertise of the team cannot be questioned, it is still important for the members to undergo disaster recovery training from a credible third party and be properly certified so as to provide our company with the international best practices and recommendations for the implementation of disaster recovery as well as business continuity. Offering Disaster recovery training to our team will also help prevent our organization from â€Å"reinventing the wheel† (Thejendra, 2008).There are several organizations that provide consultancy and training in Disaster Recovery practices but it is important to choose carefully, those who will train our disaster recovery team so as to achieve the best possible training and exposure. The choice is to a large extent, dependent on their Disaster Recovery certification and relevant experience in this field. Based on these requirements, the following are five possible sources that can adequately train our disaster recovery planning team. They include professional training organizations and academic options. DRI internationalDRI is an acronym for the Disaster Recovery Institute and is a reputable international organization which provides training and certification on disaster recovery and business continuity. The training courses that it offers range from basic to advanced levels and its certification programs are aimed towards helping an organization to maintain its professional level of competence even in the midst of calamity. If contracted, DRI will help our planning team learn how to develop a business continuity management program and come up with proper resilience strategies to overcome disasters in the shortest time frame possible.The training offered by DRI international is quite comprehensive and covers each career level therefore members of our DR planning team can grow and improve their knowledge as they progress up the career ladder (â€Å"DRI International†, 2009). The professional certification is given in five different levels starting from entry level to more advanced levels. The entry level certification training is the Associate Business Continuity Professional (ABCP) which will support our team members who have less than two years experience in this field.The second certification level is the Certified Business Continuity Vendor (CBCV) whi ch is offered to those with more than two years experience and who demonstrate knowledge of the DRI professional practices. Another certification level is the Certified Functional Continuity Professional (CFCP) level which is open for those who demonstrate knowledge, have more than two years working experience and have practical experience in at least three professional practices subject areas.The Certified Business Continuity Professional is offered to those who have practical experience in at least five professional practice subject areas and the Master Business Continuity Professional (MBCP) will cater for those who have more than five years working experience and have practical experience in at least seven professional practices subject areas. DRII certification is internationally recognized meaning that our team will get the best possible Disaster Recovery training and apply it to our organization (DRI International, 2009). Business continuity instituteThe Business Continuity i nstitute (BCI) is an internationally recognized organization that offers training on business continuity. It was started in 1994 with the aim of helping its members to get guidance on proper management of business continuity. This institute offers training and certification on business continuity management through a program known as the BCI professional recognition program. This program is aimed at helping organizations to identify any potential threats to their business and achieve resilience so that they can respond effectively and safeguard their business when disaster strikes.Some of the skills imparted by BCI training include business resilience as well as recovery strategies, business continuity plans and strategies for risk management. (Business Continuity Institute, 2009). Training with BCI can be very beneficial to our organization especially due to its international status. The BCI professional recognition program is a benchmark for assessing best practice and has encoura ged the improvement of business enhancing skills. Our disaster recovery planning team can therefore greatly benefit from the high quality training which this institute is capable of providing.BCI certification is based on the Certification standards for Business Continuity Professionals which are internationally recognized standards of disaster recovery and were published in conjunction with DRI international. Thus BCI certification is internationally recognized and its prestigious status will boost our organization’s credibility and portray us a competent enough to carry out business continuity practices consistently and to a very high professional standards (Business Continuity Institute, 2009). International Consortium for Organizational ResilienceThis is another international organization that offers training on disaster recovery and business continuity. It offers professional certifications through several certification programs that have been tailor made to suit each ca reer level. ICOR courses are offered at the ICOR University and include ten disciplines, among them, Business Continuity Management, Risk Management and Insurance, social resilience and crisis management and communication. The CORA Associate certification program is for entry level professionals and is offered even to those with no work experience.The CORS Specialist certification level is given to those with a minimum of three years work experience and who have a certification in one discipline from ICOR University. CORM manager is a more advanced certification level and for those with more than five years work experience and certifications in at least two disciplines from ICOR University. CORP Professional ICOR certification requires more than seven years work experience and certifications in four disciplines from ICOR University.Finally, CORE executive certification program is for those with more than ten years working experience and certifications from six disciplines in ICOR Un iversity. The credentialing program from ICOR is designed to help students to progress as professionals (The ICOR, 2009). The main aim of ICOR is to empower the professionals who are in charge of business continuity planning with skills that will enable them to come up with adequate resilience strategies for their businesses. If our team trains at ICOR, they will have the benefit of interacting with other professionals making their learning more meaningful.ICOR is also recognized worldwide as offering resilience solutions to organizations therefore if we gain corporate membership, our team will be able to access quite a number of benefits. Some of these advantages include interacting with professionals, having unlimited access to the ICOR library so they can read widely on the subject and have unlimited access to a wide variety of resources. As members, they will undergo thorough training and certification at a lower cost. They can attend professional conferences and constantly be u pdated on what is going on in this field.These benefits will be translated to the organization in from of improved business continuity practices as they apply what they have learnt (The ICOR, 2009). Norwich University This is one of the few academic options which offer training in the field of disaster recovery and business continuity. The disaster recovery course which started in December 2008 is offered at the Norwich online school of Graduate studies under the Masters of Science in Business continuity program. Norwich University developed this program so as to increase the level of training in the disaster recovery field.Among the subject areas that it addresses are policies, systems and procedures that will help a company to carry on with its day to day operations even in the face of a disaster that threatens interruption. Being a military college, Norwich University seems like a natural setting for this program since the military is among the first organizations in the United S tates to initiate contingency planning. The MSBC program will help organizations to strengthen information assurance thereby enhancing business continuity (Larkin, 2008).The MSBC program seeks to help businesses adopt business continuity as a best practice, assessing all business aspects from information technology to supply chains. It will help our team learn how to identify weaknesses in the disaster recovery system. The fact that lessons in this program also involve learning directly from experts and analyzing case studies of those who have actually undergone business interruption at this point and this provides more adequate and relevant information which our disaster recovery planning team can then apply to our workplace.Learning from those who have undergone a disaster first hand is more beneficial than just learning theoretically. The program is provided online so our team members can learn from the comfort of their homes or in the office and as they learn, they apply it conc urrently to the workplace. This can be likened to on the job training, only the company is not providing the training directly. Furthermore, Norwich University is able to recruit instructors in diverse working in their different fields worldwide therefore its students benefit from a wide field of knowledge (Larkin, 2008). Boston University Metropolitan CollegeBoston University is another academic option which offers training in the field of disaster recovery and business continuity. The course is offered online in two distinct programs. One is offered as a Graduate Certificate in Risk Management and Organizational Continuity (RMOC) and the other is offered as a Masters of Science in Business Continuity and Emergency Management (MSBCEM). The graduate certificate program has been designed to help businesses come up with the best strategies to cope with the various calamities that may present themselves in the lifetime of the company (Boston University online, n.d). Students in the RMO C program are taught both proactive and reactive aspects of managing a crisis. The program covers preparedness planning, proper development of a business continuity plan among others. Students will also undergo a simulation of an emergency situation at the workplace and this will help them apply the theoretical concepts that they have learned in the duration of their coursework. Members of our planning team will be able to gain useful knowledge in business continuity.They will be able to gain valuable professional credentials. It is also possible for them to further their training by enrolling in the online Master of Science in specialty management which specializes in Business Continuity, Security & Risk Management. This course is offered to build on the graduate certificate RMOC program and students under the RMOC program can simply transfer their credits to MSBCEM program and complete it only by covering the eight core courses (Boston University Online, n. d).