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Business Continuity
Operational Resilience
Business Project Services
Operational and IT Due Diligence
Business Continuity
How long could your business survive without critical processes and systems?
In the event of a major disruption to critical business processes and systems, a well thought out and tested business continuity capability is essential to minimise damage, both direct (e.g. loss of business) and indirect (e.g. adverse publicity). An effective and pragmatic business continuity capability should enable a business to respond quickly to a range of disaster scenarios, whether a major fire or typhoon, loss of access to a facility, denial of service attack, or computer virus.
Our professionals can provide a suite of business continuity services including enterprise-wide Business Continuity Planning (BCP), IT Disaster Recovery Planning, FastTrack BCP, and crisis management workshops and training.
Operational Resilience
As the E-Business marketplace becomes increasingly competitive with the flood of new entrants, differentiation between services will increasingly focus on aspects of service delivery and quality. The availability and reliability of the service will influence the strength of customer loyalty. For this reason, delivery of an effective operational risk management programme, and, in particular, a focus on technology and operational resilience, both in terms of availability and performance, will act as a key differentiator in the customers' selection process.
The PricewaterhouseCoopers Operational Resilience model allows an organisation to wrap its business operations within an "operational resilience envelope". The resilience envelope provides protection for the business operations through an integrated set of resilience services focusing on:
Performance Definition - Translating business strategy into operational requirements and performance measures including service levels for third party providers.
Service Management - Establishing an independent service management function and defining the scope of responsibility for delivering end-to-end operational resilience.
Operational Scalability - Establishing and maintaining operational performance levels based upon expected stress levels and taking into account existing operational tolerances.
Operational Continuity - Defining procedures to accommodate operational failure, both stress and non-stress related, to ensure continued service delivery without the need to invoke full business recovery measures.
Business Recovery - Defining procedures to manage the displacement of critical resources, human or technical, to an alternative processing location in response to a major incident.
Business Project Services
The ability of an organisation to effectively manage the complexity and risks associated with today's technological and business innovations is crucial to remain competitive in the marketplace. Organisations must assess their internal strengths/resources including:
- The recognition of programme/project management as a strategic core competency.
- The organisation's track record of successfully implementing projects that satisfy customer requirements and are delivered on time and within budget.
- The ability to implement cross-project standards to minimise the risk of project failure.
PricewaterhouseCoopers offers support through detailed Project Risk and Project Quality Assurance reviews, to assist companies in remaining on track and to maximise their ability to realise the expected business benefits. Larger and more complex projects/programmes can benefit from the introduction of a Project Support Office with ongoing support being provided during Operational Acceptance Testing.
Additionally, PricewaterhouseCoopers helps businesses successfully manage risks of change including:
- Significant organisational change for companies that are implementing e-business transformation.
- Business strategy changes that necessitate operational change.
- Tactical adjustments to existing e-business operations to ensure efficiency.
Operational and IT Due Diligence
In a recent survey undertaken by PricewaterhouseCoopers on 125 corporations that have completed a merger or acquisition, nearly three out of four companies reported problems in integrating their information systems resulting in delays, lost revenue and missed opportunities for the corporation. Melding divergent operating philosophies, information management practices, administrative procedures and communication styles were post-deal hurdles for more than half of those surveyed.
More significantly, the survey has underlined the importance of ensuring a smooth integration of management information systems and technologies, which is crucial in providing the stability and momentum needed by the corporation to realise cost efficiency and maximise potential synergy. A protracted integration of key information systems will cause delays that can give competitors the opportunity to advance ahead of the corporation.
As deals become more complex and as technology, and the people who support it, becomes a key driver of merger and acquisition activities, it is increasingly vital to begin planning the integration of information systems early in the deal process. Our experience is that careful planning early in the transaction greatly simplifies the post-merger integration of information systems.
As part of the PricewaterhouseCoopers Transactions team, we have experienced professionals who can assist you with pre- and post- merger and acquisition support that will allow you to gain an insight into the target management team, identify merger issues on IT operation and technology, and plan for a successful integration of information systems. Our service offerings include Information Systems and technology due diligence, assessment of legacy IT systems, development of transition IT strategies, assessment of valuation-related IT and Internet metrics, transition planning and project management, and IT organisation and staffing reviews. | 
