IBM unveils disaster management tool

IBM launched on Friday a tool which would assess and help build disaster management skills at business enterprises during exigencies
like bandhs, floods, acts of terrorism or system failures.

"Resiliency Maturity Index is an innovative disaster management framework for building a resilient enterprise," Guruduth Banavar, Associate Direcotr, IBM India Research Laboratory, told PTI.

The tool, released across the globe on Friday, assesses how well an organisation is prepared to respond and continue operations in the face of disruptions without losing momentum.

"Failures or threats that can test the resiliency of an organisation can range from relatively simple power and network failures to massive breakdowns from terrorist attacks, natural disasters and pandemics," he said.

The RMI framework analyses the preparedness of each component of an organisation as well as that of the organisation as a whole and gives a score as per the index.

The score helps the organisation to understand the preparedness of each component and make investments wherever it was needed to enhance the resiliency level.

"We want RMI to be made an industry rating which would help the investors and customers get a better picture of the resiliency of a particular organisation. It would also be a handy tool while outsourcing projects and works," he said.

In a recent survey of software companies, 66 per cent of the financial investment firm

managers wanted risk management to be a strategic business function and embedded deeply into the fabric of the organisation.

Unfortunately, less than 45 per cent of software companies surveyed have ever conducted a company-wide risk assessment or have a sound continuity of operations plan in place, said Banavar.

"Businesses and governments today require capabilities across all three phases of crisis: readiness, response and recovery," he said, adding organisations face a growing number of threats from natural and man-made disasters or disruptive events that have costly, far-reaching impact.

"Business leaders are faced with the challenge of keeping their enterprise running and growing, no matter what. Failure to deal with risk, stay agile and prepare plan for business continuity can have disastrous consequences on operations, revenue and even the company's brand," he said.

The index could also be applied to other sectors such as manufacturing units and business establishments.

The RMI was developed after year-long efforts by the researchers at the IBM India Research Laboratory.

IBM is now working with the Software Engineering Institute at the Carnegie-Mellon University to incorporate parts of the assessment framework into an industry standard.

In a related effort, IBM also has developed a 'Skills Planning' model for optimal allocation of jobs across an organisation to minimise the impact of a disaster at any one site.