As we roll into the new year, it’s important for businesses to have a plan in place to ensure their continuity in the face of unforeseen hazards. A business continuity plan (BCP) is a mechanism for protecting a corporation and ensuring that operations can resume rapidly in the case of a disaster. In other words, it’s your plan to make sure your business continues in the face of disruptions that can cause other companies to be interrupted or halt operations.  BCP practitioners face a seemingly insurmountable problem: disruptions have grown intense and more frequent while traditional BCP strategies prove to be inadequate in addressing these changes.

Typical BCP Tools and Where They Fail

While traditional BCP tools are usually tailored for diverse scenarios, the problem lies in the fact that they are too tailor-fit for a particular set of issues. This constricts BCP leaders as these tools cannot fully provide the information (i.e. the information is too narrow or limited) they need to make the right calls.

For example, Microsoft Excel. We all know and love this spreadsheet application. It’s become ubiquitous with the office setup. This may be so but the fact remains BCPs are usually too complex for Excel to handle and cannot provide businesses with any useful advice outside of providing raw data.  Even customized optimization tools don’t solve everything. Not to mention that the procurement price for these are exorbitant and require doctorate years to operate.  Meanwhile, financial planning software is too limited. BCPs should be out of the box. After all, there are more things to consider than just the finances.

Where Technology Comes In

Enter the digital twin. It’s exactly what it sounds like. A digital twin is a virtual representation of a real thing or process. So in the context of a BCP, we should have a digital planning twin.

BCP practitioners have access to a true picture of the business’s product and service delivery process, including demand, customer terms, the value chain, revenue, expenses, and financial statements, thanks to a digital planning twin.

After then, optimization is used to suggest the optimal choices, keeping in mind the constraints and goals laid down.

To be more specific, a digital planning twin helps BCPs by…

• Determining the plan(s) that would best achieve goals while coordinating tactical and strategic choices about supply, demand, capacity, procurement, and finances.
• Creating a plan that is optimal for investments and new capabilities, including the opportunity to collect measured value.
• Recognizing important limitations and performance factors
• Delivering a comprehensive set of reports that explain the rationale behind the advice and point out activities that provide little value.
• Executing large and concurrent what-if scenarios, evaluating robustness, and quantifying important trade-offs

Why NetSuite Data Management?

NetSuite has a digital planning twin called NetSuite Data Management. It offers a range of features and capabilities that enable businesses to ensure the continuity of their operations and protect against potential disruptions. Company data is completely backed up, mirrored, and accessible anytime, anywhere. One of the key benefits of NetSuite Data Management is its multiple levels of redundancy. This design allows uninterrupted service because redundant systems automatically assume processing in the event that one or more elements fail. This is especially important for businesses that rely on the smooth functioning of their systems for their operations. In addition to redundancy, NetSuite Data Management also has robust disaster recovery capabilities. Data is replicated and synchronized between data centers within each region, which helps to ensure the availability and accessibility of company data in the event of a disaster. NetSuite also conducts semi-annual disaster recovery exercises to assess and enhance personnel preparedness and ensure that the right systems and processes are in place. Additionally, archival backups are used to support customer-initiated data restores for a period of 60 days, further adding to the reliability and resilience of the system.

NetSuite Data Management is also highly scalable, able to support over 33,000 customers with over 1.5 billion data requests per day and more than 6 petabytes of data under management. The system has been designed to accommodate routine surges and spikes in usage and to scale upward smoothly to address increased transaction volume. This flexibility and scalability makes it well-equipped to handle the needs of a diverse range of customers.

Finally, NetSuite Data Management offers operational resilience, enabling customers to deliver products and services even in the face of adverse conditions. Climate change, global pandemics, geopolitical events, and cyber threats can all pose challenges to operational resiliency, but with NetSuite as your business technology, you can benefit from a considerably reduced risk to business continuity. The robust design and capabilities of the system help to ensure its reliability and effectiveness in a variety of situations.

Overall, NetSuite Data Management is a valuable tool for businesses looking to protect themselves against potential disruptions and ensure the continuity of their operations. Its multiple levels of redundancy, robust disaster recovery capabilities, scalability, and operational resilience make it a reliable choice for businesses of all sizes.

Reality Check

The reality is the everchanging times can be too much to handle. Without the right tools, equipment, or perspective, businesses can fall real fast. By employing digital planning twins like NetSuite Data Management to BCPs, company decision-makers can come up with sufficient solutions and turn insights into actions. With NetSuite, businesses can confidently start the new year with a plan in place to ensure their continued success.

Don’t let disruptions stand in the way of your business’s success – protect yourself with NetSuite Data Management.