CIS 462 Disaster Recovery Plan

Figure B: Organization Structure

In the figure above the CEO or the president stands out to ensures that the organization stays the on track to achieve the business goals and objectives. Although the president is in control, other departments have specific functions that collectively synchronized with each other for coordination. For example, the IT department deals with employee's account login procedures for the company. Operations division deals with financial issues such as employee remuneration and project funding programs.

Figure C: Organization’s Network Structure

The diagram above shows the organizational structure for Apple Corporation across nine franchises internationally. The headquarters in Cupertino, California controls the operations where all franchises are managed and monitored. Each franchise has distinct functions, e.g., China serves as the production center for Apple products. The products are produced, tested, and developed at the headquarters.

Proposed Network Architecture

The high network, i.e., Figure 3 shows the typical scenario where no disruptive eventualities occur. In case of disaster strikes, the operations of the organizations would bring to a halt. It directly affects the organization’s headquarters in California. Again, any disaster that affects the production center, i.e., China would be potentially dangerous to the organization. Therefore, a proposed network would consist of ways through which the effects at the headquarters or the production frontier are reduced (O’Grady, 2009). For example, a disaster affecting the offices may be mitigated by temporarily moving the headquarters to Texas. The process would ensure that the normal operations of the bases do not cripple the activities of other locations.

Second, disasters can affect the production frontier like China. They may be checked by temporarily transferring production activities to the location in India. In terms, India would provide a strategy because there the labor is cheap. Facilitate workers’ are mobility due to its proximity to China (Baum, 2008). Also, the organization’s profitability index suffer less because the cost manufacture is nearly equivalent to China’s. The proposed network architecture would appear as shown in the diagram below.

Figure D: Network Architecture

Disaster Recovery Plan

DRP policy helps the Apple Corporation to handle any eventualities in a more organized manner to maintain operational standards. The plan embedded on the extent at which the disaster affects the day-to-day operations of the organization.

Declaration

Before any disaster recovery plan takes effect, the organization’s management must declare the disaster. In Apple Inc., disaster declaration involves assessing the overall results regarding production and sales (Galbraith, 2005). In other words, the management checks whether the disaster affects the production level and sales by more than 15% and 30% respectively (Havrilesky, 2010). The computer program which monitors production and sales gives the results onscreen. With a specific time frame one week of production levels and sales can fall by 15% and 30% dramatically. When this happens, the computer will produce an audio warning.

The disaster management team makes confirmation before the declaration. In this case, the organization may experience computer interruptions which may lead to false findings. Inaccurate findings can cost the time, money, and logistics problems. The disaster team will analyze all details to make sure that the disaster is real. Upon the findings, disaster declaration memos will be sent to all departments for actions.

Security Assessment

When a disaster occurs, rival companies can take advantage of valuable information due to a security breach. In this case, Apple Corporation conducts internet security checks by employing powerful software that scans restricted databases and internet sites. Once done, the assessing team compiles a details report of the finding highlighting the extent of valuable critical data loss. Information extracted from the restricted locations and a list of offenders will be in the report as well. The management evaluates the reports and decides of what actions should take place. For examples, the organization hires an attorney to handle the lawsuits against the offenders.

Disaster Scenarios/ Response

The organization is prone to some potential disasters that may directly or indirectly affect the normal operations. Hackers are the most common accident for cybersecurity in they try to gain access to vital data. The data can consist of financial assets, personal information, and advertising plans. Once this information leaks out, the corporation stands to lose its competitive advantage. Next, the natural disasters like tornadoes, tsunami and earthquakes are potentially dangerous to the organization. For instance, the China Tsunami affected production activities by 20% and reduced the sales by 23% (Havrilesky, 2010). Lastly, political instability is a severe problem in countries where the organization has multiple locations. For instance, in 2008 Arab Spring caused the organization’s sale to declined at least by 19% (Coppola, 2007).

The degree of impact will be determined what strategies to use for dealing with potential disaster. A technical team handles cybersecurity issues with the help monitoring technology. With the help of this technology, the organization remotely monitors the flow of information from restricted databases. Also, there are sophisticated password guards that ensure that only permitted people to have access to classified information. Natural and political instability disasters managed by organizational changes such as transfer of operations to safe franchises.

Recovery Procedures

The organization has put in place transparent disaster recovery procedures to aid in restoring normalcy in operations. In case of natural disasters, the agency contacts franchises in the nearest countries to host activities temporarily. The organization seeks permission from the Ministry of Labor in the host country. Once the consent arranges, employees move to the host country. When the political environment in the affected country goes back to normalcy, the company writes to the Ministry of Labor in the host country seeking to terminate its operations (Ritchie, 2009).

For employees moving back to the original country, the necessary documentation obtained and signatures appended. For cybersecurity issues, recovery program involves the development of new security systems. However, before any disaster recovery plan is approved, the organization’s production levels and sales must fall back to the recommended range.

Executive Summary

The IRT charter seeks to control incidents in a way that it minimizes the damages for the corporation. Meanwhile, recovery cost and time are down, and the stakeholders are confident. One of the primary reasons why IRT charter exists in Apple Inc is because it acts as a launching pad for response during disasters (Baum, 2008). The memo also helps to enhanced decision making by determining the pecking order. Furthermore, IRT charter helps in enhancing internal coordination by stipulating the duties and responsibilities of team members during disasters. Therefore, well-coordinated response efforts become hard to achieve the recovery plans because such activities have different targets.

Mission Statement

The organization’s IRT mission statement is crucial to continued operations in the event of disasters. The mission statement is formulated as follows, “To swiftly provide a strategic response to disruptive incidents and disaster to assist the organization to maintain its production standards and sales levels” (Baum, 2008).

Organizational Structure

The organizational structure team is composed of no more than ten members. Two of the total members must come from any other stable franchise (O’Grady, 2009). One-third of the team members must be women. The Disaster response manager leads the team in a crisis. The associate managers are section heads including the finance section, IT, Operations, Health and Safety, Production, Sales, Marketing, and Technical part (O’Grady, 2009).

References

Baum, J. A. C. (2008). Network Strategy. Bradford: Emerald Group Pub.

Coppola, D. P. (2007). Introduction to international disaster management. Amsterdam:

Butterworth Heinemann.

Galbraith, J. R. (2005). Designing organizations: An executive briefing on strategy, structure,

And process. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Havrilesky, H. (2010). Disaster preparedness. New York: Riverhead Books.

O'Grady, J. D. (2009). Apple Inc. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press.

Ritchie, B. W. (2009). Crisis and disaster management for tourism. Bristol, UK: Channel

View Publications.

Van, W. K. R., (2001). Incident response. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly.