As the whole country is now firmly under the wrap of mother natures white blanket, many of the UK’s working population have faced major disruption. The usually mundane drive to work now requires the skill of a world rally driver. Planes, trains and automobiles have almost all ground to a halt, and with little sign of an end to this cold weather, the prospect for businesses does not look good.
Reports have emerged of UK businesses suffering power disruptions and in some cases outages for days on end. Couple this with the loss in employee productivity, some business leaders have estimated £10Million per day drop in the economy in some cities, and up to £2bn cost of disruption nationally.
Many companies business continuity and disaster recovery plans have been put to the test with varying success. The topic of remote working raises its head once again. It was only 11 months ago when we saw the last heavy snow fall in the UK and the news was filled with similar stories of lost productivity and disruption. One thing we can count on for sure is that this will not be the last time this country struggles with adverse weather conditions.
So what part can technology play in reducing the impact and disruption of weather? The obvious answer is to address the remote working issue with technologies such as Citrix, Terminal Services or VDI. This also presents an opportunity to look at the cloud computing model, as services can be provisioned to end users regardless of location and device (to a certain extent) from a central resilient and robust data centre environment, come rain or shine. The model gives organisations the opportunity to avoid power disruptions, provision IT services to end users and subsequently continue providing services and products to customers. Let’s not forget the other benefits of a centralised model such as reduced management, maintenance, and operating costs, provisioning and scalability. Most cloud offerings now come with a comprehensive backup, replication and continuity service either included or as a cost option. Businesses can now rest assured their data is safe and available in almost all circumstances.
Many organisations won’t go to the effort of evaluating the cost impact for “snow days” but it perhaps should not be overlooked. For example, a customer services representative on £24k per year could carry a tangible cost of up to £1,500 per week. With 10% of the UK workforce unable to get to work this week, it is not hard to see how costs can soon mount up.
For now, lets brace for the next few days of cold weather!
For information on remote working, cloud computing, business continuity or disaster recovery, please contact me on david.garfit@servo.co.uk or 07747 761 781
