Ask Phil Bigge, the business continuity manager at Countrywide Financial, if there have been any turning points in his career there and he’ll tell you the answer is obvious. “It was when we reached the point when everyone began to realize what I already knew, which was that there was no way we could adequately maintain our business continuity plans using (a word processing tool). It was during one of our disaster recovery simulations when it became obvious that the power and efficiency needed to do the job right just wasn’t there,” he explained.
Bigge, who’s been in the business continuity practice since 1996, has been the business continuity manager at Countrywide Financial since 2001. Countrywide Financial is a member of the S&P 500, Forbes 500 and Fortune 500. Through its family of companies, they provide mortgage banking and diversified financial services in domestic and international markets.
When this realization occurred, Bigge was confident of his proposed resolution. “I had previously worked with LDRPS to sustain a BCP at a former job, so I came here to Countrywide Financial knowing the following: one, that Countrywide is a company that is growing by leaps and bounds, and two, that there was no way that we were going to be able to manage a disaster recovery plan effectively with (a word processing tool) for a company like this.”
Through regularly scheduled disaster recovery simulations, LDRPS has proven to Countrywide Financial that they are now able to accurately and adequately maintain their vast amount of plans. “Right now we have 185 business continuity plans,” Bigge says. “From the very first full disaster recovery simulation managed with LDRPS, it was proven without a doubt that (a word processing tool) couldn’t do it, and that LDRPS could.”
Transitioning to LDRPS
“There was reluctance to go to LDRPS at first,” Bigge explains. “We had recently spent money for a consultant who gave us plans in (a word processing program). I knew I had to prove to them that if I could get a better hold of managing data, we would be able to improve not only our planning process, but also the accuracy of our plan.” The first step of their transition was testing out a demo of LDRPS on a few of Countrywide’s plans that needed to be updated. “It took conservatively 25 percent less time to take the plans from (a word processing tool) and put them in LDRPS and update them as it did just to update the plans in (the word processing tool)!”
Now with LDRPS firmly in place as their continuity planning tool, it now takes 75 percent less time to maintain the disaster recovery plans at Countrywide Financial. “And right from the start, all the work with LDRPS has been done by a staff of people that have never used the product,” he explains.
One of the key steps taken in reaching this level of efficiency was the use of plan templates. Developed by Strohl’s team of certified continuity planning experts, plan templates define the tasks, processes, and resources planners will need to consider when building plans. “We were impressed with the templates that came with the product,” says Bigge. “We created a few of our own as well which makes our planning experience even easier.”
Maintenance in a Snap
If there’s one quality that Bigge requires in BCP software, it’s that it must be easily maintainable. “People might not understand that the more time spent maintaining plans, the less time they’ll need to actually work on their BCP. What this does is leaves more time for testing, planning recovery strategies, and training.” Just a few short years ago prior to using LDRPS, Countrywide Financial’s continuity planning was limited to maintaining just a small percentage of their company’s contact information. “It’s not like that anymore. Now we get a feed every two weeks from PeopleSoft® to populate our plans in LDRPS. We’re now up to 28,000 people and are being told to plan for 50 percent more growth by 2005, and we’re confident that we can accommodate that prediction.”
Bigge’s approach to maintaining these thousands of plans is simple and straightforward. “Once every two weeks, we sit down as a staff and take a look at our LDRPS and go through different planning situations and ask ourselves how it can be improved. And as far as maintaining them, thanks to the relational database of LDRPS, things as immense as employee phone numbers are easily managed. All it takes is one update, and it’s made throughout the entire system. The format remains consistent, which doesn’t always hold true when using (a word processing tool), and it’s all done via a very user-friendly format.”
Turning to the Web
Considering Countrywide Financial’s predicted growth explosion, the decision for them to utilize LDRPS Web was an obvious one. Bigge is already preparing and customizing now, anticipating not only a larger plan, but also a more diverse one. “Now that we’re maintaining our plans on the Web, we’re able to think and plan on a global scale.”
Previous to using LDRPS Web, Bigge would annually visit Countrywide Financial’s satellite locations to help them maintain their business continuity plans. Now they can maintain the plans themselves on an ongoing basis as their business processes change throughout the year. “Thanks to this, our business units are able to maintain their plans quickly and easily themselves, which is a relief since we have close to 25 corporate centers.”
In order to keep true to his work philosophy, Bigge is thankful of the support from his managing director that enabled the upgrade to LDRPS Web. “The philosophy of our BCP department is this: Our business units are our customers, and we (his BCP team) want to deliver an excellent product to them, and meet their needs. Both their needs and the timeliness that we need to deliver the product are increasing. With this growth and diversification, LDRPS Web is coming into place in an excellent time in Countrywide Financial’s growth.”
Plan Activity
Plan testing at Countrywide Financial occurs about twice a year, and generally range from individual to multiple system testing. But on occasion they are as aggressive as major disaster simulations where they’ll exercise a large majority of their BCP for any number of given sites including their emergency operation plan that involves the highest level of Countrywide’s senior management. “A successful test exposes the weaknesses of your plan. We don’t necessarily look for what went right, but more for what didn’t go right, so we can correct them right away. And with each test, we raise the bar. We ask ourselves how we can make each simulation more complex, and how we can test the corrected weaknesses that were exposed during the previous test.
Countrywide Financial’s plans have been activated several times, but never for an extremely dire situation. “While our plans address the worst-case scenario, LDRPS is flexible enough to take bits and pieces of those worst-case scenario plans and customize them for the lesser types of disasters. This diversity makes us ready for anything.” For example, Bigge explains the course of actions taken during a recent fire in one of Countrywide’s buildings earlier this year. “We used it to account for our people in the building, measure the impact on our business processes, and also to find out what recovery actions would need to take place if the fire worsened. Luckily that didn’t happen, but the fact that with LDRPS we were able to keep the affected business units operating with very little impact was key,” says Bigge. “We knew exactly what needed our attention, created some ad-hoc reports according to the situation, and had a plan of action by the time Senior Management arrived, which impressed them greatly. That’s just one of the times that we’ve activated our plan for an event that wasn’t necessarily a disaster-type situation for us, but one where continuity needed to be put in place.”
Planning Ahead
When asked if he is prepared for the pending expansion of Countrywide Financial, Bigge was confident with his answer. “With everything in place, right now we’re in very good shape to accommodate our predicted growth explosion up to and beyond 2005. One of the key factors that propelled and accelerated the Countrywide Financial business continuity plan was bringing in LDRPS. I’ve been using it for seven years now, and it’s not only the tool that’s helpful, but it’s also the methodology behind it that has accelerated our BCP to be extremely maintainable.”
What’s the key to Bigge’s overwhelming success as BCP manager at Countrywide Financial? He credits his philosophy for successful planning. “For many organizations, big or small, information is key to their plans, so they need to leverage off of current and accurate production data. With so much information to maintain, it needs to be friendly, useable, and designed so that anyone can use it. The ability of the LDRPS database to be modified to meet the criteria and culture of Countrywide, or any company or organization for that matter, has made all the difference. Everyone is very comfortable using it, and the product continues to prove its worth time after time.”
