Providing Business Continuity Plan after Natural Disasters: A Case Study in the Staff Area of Water and Wastewater Company of Tehran

 

ARTICLE INFO	ABSTRACT
ORIGINAL ARTICLE	Introduction: Each economic and non-economic institute is inevitably forced to pay special attention  to the post-crisis phase to keep its organizational alive, carry out its missions, and reduce the damages and costs caused by various crises. In this research, we tried to extract the Business Continuity Plan (BCP) after the natural disaster of earthquake in the staff area of Water and Wastewater Company of Tehran within the localized framework of BS-25999 British Standards Institution (BSI). Methods: In this regard, a questionnaire was used for data collection. Analysis of the questionnaire results was performed by SPSS19 and Expertchoice11 applications. Results: The manager of Water and Wastewater Company of  Tehran was found to be the best authority for managing the emergency so that the company can continue its operation and return to normal situation. According to the findings, the hot site was selected as the best location for business continuity of Water and Wastewater Company of Tehran, which could be an alternative site to continue the activities and services after the disaster. Conclusion: A localized post-earthquake Business Continuity Plan (BCP) was suggested in the staff area of Water and Wastewater Company of Tehran. In this site,  necessary actions can be perfromed to continue the activities before, during, and after the disaster. Furthermore, organizational chart and task description can be redefined in it.   Keywords: Standard BS-25999, Business Continuity Plan (BCP), staff area of Water and Wastewater Company of Tehran.
Article history: Received: 16 May 2019 Revised: 20 July. 2019 Accepted: 10 Agu. 2019
*Corresponding author: Vahid Shafaie Address: University of Applied Science and Technology of Red Crescent of Qazvin, Beheshti Blvd., Qazvin, Iran. Email: vshafaie@alumni.ut.ac.ir Tel: +98-28-33365879

 
Introduction

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very organization is subjected to the danger of potential events, such as natural disasters (floods, earthquakes, and etc.) and environmental disasters (pollution and leakage of dangerous materials). In this regard, providing and keeping a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) helps the organization to ensure about possession of the required resources and data to confront with these emergency conditions (1).
In 2007, British Standards Institution (BSI) formulated BS-25999 standard called " Business Continuity Management (BCM)". The first approach of this standard is to prepare organizations and companies to confront various kinds of crises. This standard, as the first standard of management of business continuity, creats an appropriate management system and tries to help the organization to continue working even in the most unpredicted severe conditions. In this way, it reduces the risk of failure, supports the prosperity and security of staff as well as validity of the organization, and provides the ability to guide and continue main activities. This standard was published in two parts late in 2006 and early in 2007 (2):
1- The first part of BS-25999 is introduced as a manual and expresses how to make a business continuity management process. It also provides examples and appropriate suggestions. Generally, it is a standard that:
A. Makes processes, rules, and related terms to BCM.
B. Provides an introduction for implementation and measurement of the durability of Business Continuity in the organization.
C. Can be executed and implemented in various organizational scales.
2- The second part of BS-25999, which contains the specifications and features of the management schema, contains the needed requirements for implementation, execution, and advancement of a business continuity management system (BCMS). This part enables the organization to validate and formalize arrangements of the business continuity management by an external audit. In other words, they can have an independent audit for this purpose. It makes shareholders, clients, and insurance agencies more assured about management process of the business continuity in the mentioned organization.
The main purpose of the standard is to offer basic concepts for understanding, making, and implementing business continuity in an organization. Additionally, it looks for assurance of organization relations with its clients and other organizations. This standard enables the organization to evaluate and measure the management ability of the business continuity through an integrated and predefined method. The defined needs and requirements in British Standard are general. It is expected that regardless of the type, size, and nature of the business, it should be applicable in all organizations (or at least parts of them).
The Water and Wastewater Company has the responsibility of supplying and keeping water as an essential element of life. Therefore, continuation of its activities is of great importance in disaster time. If this organization can keep on its regular operation in emergency conditions, the society can return to normal situation more rapidly. So, it is necessary to plan for the continuity of activities in critical conditions before the disaster happens.
Shimoda reported an integrated set of necessary data on security issues in urban water and wastewater system, which was the consequence of broad research in the United States. This research was presented as a source on security issues of water and wastewater system for a wide range of catastrophic factors (3).
Mozaffari also considered the vulnerability of water supply systems against earthquakes and examines solutions for crisis management in this system (4).
 After examining the research background, the theoretical foundations of BCP in the crisis management system is addressed in this paper. In the case study section, the general specifications of Tehran and Water and Wastewater Company of Tehran province are studied and then, research methodology is described. Finally, the results were presented.
Theoretical Foundations
In this section, to clarify the theoretical foundations of the research, three topics were focoused on: the place of BCP in crisis management cycle, the life cycle of business continuity, Plan- Do-Check-Act, which are used in research and formulation of the plan.
The Place of BCP in Crisis Management Cycle
The initial goal of crisis management is to avoid casualties and losses of life caused by the crisis and being prepared to deal with them. Then, in the case of a crisis, the aim is to make a quick relief and reduce the effects and consequences of the crisis. One of the critical parts of the crisis management cycle is the recovery and improvement after the disaster. Business Continuity Plan can be considered as a pass from the response to the recovery phase of disaster cycle (Figure 1). This planning should initiate immediately after occurance of a disaster in an organization and should be continued until beginning of the complete renovation and recovery plans.