Continuity East Africa on Tuesday set up Ksh.200M Business Recovery Centre in Kenya, a firm that will assist Kenyan Businesses draw up threat profiles and reduce impact of disruption.
Continuity East Africa – a subsidiary of Internet Solutions Kenya – launched operations in ICT Resilience, Enterprise Risk Management and Business Continuity Management (BCM) advisory services targeting public and private businesses in East Africa.
Speaking on Tuesday in Nairobi during the launch, – Continuity East Africa CEO Peter Frielinghaus said solutions have to be sought to make a suitable business environment.
“The fact that we live in a perilous age cannot be gainsaid. Calamities whether natural or resulting from human commission and omission have devastated businesses. BCM is a framework for identifying an organization’s risk of exposure to these threats and their impact on the business in order that appropriate recovery and risk mitigation strategies can be developed” said Pete Frielinghaus – Continuity East Africa CEO.
According to him, Continuity East Africa will help businesses establish processes beyond the conventional Disaster Recovery Plans by determining vulnerable areas and potential losses in the event of a disaster.
The recovery site off Thika Highway was chosen for a number of reasons, amongst them; geographical location and ease of from the CBD but far away enough to ensure that when an incident affects the city, the operations are intact, enabling recovery within acceptable timeframes or Recovery Time Objectives (RTO). The site has a Work Area Recovery facility with a sitting capacity of 104, a Data Centre for all technical failover, a command center, meeting rooms, cafeteria and ample secure parking.
“We shall help businesses develop business continuity plans (BCP) that ensure they keep running during and following a disruption. The plans will cover a host of variables such as failing over to a recovery site, people and resource resilience, data back up and process continuity in order to reduce the impact of the incident and help businesses resume their normal services within the shortest time possible” said Pete.
Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expect Kenya’s Annual GDP growth to reach 5.80 percent by the end of this quarter.
Continued growth into a regional commercial hub has equally raised the country’s risk profile, requiring an Integrated Risk Management Approach that will help maintain resilience & Sustainability.
Continuity East Africa says it will offer the same services offered by the mother company, ContinuitySA which has for the past 27 years, led the business continuity industry in Africa.
In response to varied market dynamics, the portfolio of services will gradually evolve to keep a pace with changing business requirements while taking advantage of technology advances for relevance.
Internet Solutions Managing Director Mr. Richard Hechle, pointed out the importance of continuity planning, especially in an age where employees and their devices have now become elements of compromise to a business.
He further noted that by helping businesses understand their risk profile and developing a risk mitigation strategy, the impact of double losses from disruptions and loss of valuable time, equitable to revenue can be minimized.
Speaking on the government’s involvement in business continuity, ICT Cabinet Secretary Hon. Joe Mucheru reiterated the government’s support of the BCM concept, sighting past disruptions that have paralyzed operations for government entities and therefore service delivery to citizens.
“As the government, we provide a wide range of services to the citizens. Disruption in service delivery impedes meeting our obligations and hinders economic growth. With minimal disruptions as intended by BCM, we can move up from the current position 92 as a global destination for investment”, said CS ICT Joe Mucheru.
ContinuitySA is Africa’s premier provider of business continuity management (BCM) services to public and private organization; with fully managed services in ICT resilience, enterprise risk management, work area recovery and BCM advisory—all designed to enhance business resilience in an age of escalating threat. By helping clients understand their risk profile and then develop an appropriate risk-mitigation strategy, ContinuityEA provides peace of mind for all stakeholders.
ContinuitySA has access to the continent’s biggest network of recovery centers, with more than 20000 m2 of recovery space in Gauteng (Midrand and Randburg), the Western Cape (Tyger Valley and Somerset West), and Kwa-Zulu Natal (Mount Edgecombe) as well in Botswana, Mozambique and Mauritius.
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