2 July 2008
Lagos — The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigeria 's apex bank, has affirmed the competence of City Business Computers (CBC), a leading provider of cutting edge information technology services and solutions, in Business Continuity Management (BCM) for organisations in the country.
This was contained in an address delivered last week in Lagos by Ernest Ebi, deputy Governor, Corporate Services, CBN, at a workshop on disaster recovery and business continuity challenges for financial institutions in Nigeria organised by CBC.
Ebi, who was represented by Walter Harry, Director of Strategy and Performance (CBN), described the workshop as an opportunity to share thoughts on the topical issue of business continuity and disaster recovery, particularly as it relates to the initiative in this area that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has commenced. "We are aware of the competences of CBC in this space and appreciate the effort to promote the concept of business continuity and I call on all stakeholders to emulate this effort," he said.
Ebi said the ability to survive and adapt has been the fundamental desire of the human race from time immemorial. "As business management techniques and practices evolved so also did business continuity management, although at a much slower pace, than information technology," he said.
According to him, BCM has over the last decade been a fundamental tool in the fight against business disruption and is closely aligned with disaster recovery. The relationship between BCM and disaster recovery, he said, has often confused business leaders and IT managers, noting that business continuity is a holistic management process that builds a framework for the organisation's resilience, while disaster recovery provides the process and plan for the recovery of the technological elements of the business.
"Without the two working together, it will be difficult to identify or manage risks as well as effectively recover in the event of every disruption. The continued availability of critical business processes, their supporting applications and other resources are absolutely necessary to the sustained viability of any enterprise."
He added that "denial of access to or failure of any of these critical resources would severely impact the operational effectiveness of the organization," adding that "effective BCM is about not only minimising the likelihood of an event occurring but also having the ability to recover if the worst happens."
Ebi said CBN aims to be a source of knowledge and support for the bank's stakeholders, the nation's financial sector, and the region as a whole.
To ensure successful roll-out and sustained implementation, Ebi said the bank also developed simultaneously, the related strategies for Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Knowledge Management (KM). SOA will ensure the CBN becomes process-oriented across the enterprise, while taking full advantage of technology trends in this direction, while KM helps develop the growth of human capital and improvement of organisational performance across-the-board.
"BCM, SOA and KM must exist in a symbiotic relationship to generate the needed resilience, agility and innovation that every organisation needs to survive these days," he said. A former governor of CBN, Ola Vincent,in a keynote address, said a lot of effort has been expended in devising technology to cope with the consequences of the dramatic explosion in IT, especially in the area of huge amount of data generated and released at the touch of a button.
These data, he said, have to be absorbed and digested by the managers and judiciously and profitably employed.
Vincent noted that IT has provided and continues to provide sustainable and effective solutions to the prompt availability of data in precise details. "Accidents occur anytime in the affairs of men and particularly in business operations. IT is also fully prepared to deal with the likely disruptive effects of such eventualities, which might be something huge like fire, flooding, earthquake or malfunctioning of software caused by a computer virus or human carelessness," he said.
According to Vincent, it is therefore vital that business organisations, especially in the financial services sector should have disaster recovery and business continuity planning as an integral part of risk management.
Hakeem Rabiu of Ernst & Young noted that although disaster recovery has always been important but events in recent years have increased the awareness and heightened its importance.
Rabiu noted that most financial institutions in Nigeria confuse business continuity with disaster recovery. "Most times, when you ask a bank to give you its BCM, the likelihood is for the bank to bring its disaster recovery plan," he said.
"This means that most financial institutions confuse BCM with disaster recovery forgetting the fact that disaster recovery is a subset of business recovery planning," he noted.
According to him, disaster recovery provisions that are inadequate can lead to non-availability of critical resources such as information and communications systems.
"When this occurs, even for a short time, it can result in major financial loss, loss of credibility and breach of regulatory requirements," he said.
Managing Director of CBC, Gbade Alabi,in his own remarks, said the workshop was part of his organisation's corporate social responsibility, the ultimate aim of which is to create further awareness on the importance of business continuity planning and strategy to all organisations in the country.
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