A survey of information and communication technology aspects of disaster recovery among companies quoted at the Nairobi stock exchange

Abstract

The objectives of this study were three. The first was to establish the aspects of disaster recovery that exist within companies quoted on the Nairobi Stock Exchange. The second was to determine the importance attached to the aspects of disaster recovery. The third was to determine the challenges faced by IT managers in companies quoted on the Nairobi Stock Exchange in implementing disaster recovery aspects. The need for this study arose due to the fact that, different organisations have unique business needs in view of the Kenyan social economic and legal context. Companies are increasing being faced with the threat of disasters that could interfere with the normal operations of the business. This has thus, created in increased need for organisations to put in measures to be prepared for business continuity in event of a disaster. Each organisation has different aspects of disaster recovery and each may rate different these aspects differently in view of the unique challenges that they face. To determine the aspects in these organisations and the relative importance they assign to them as well as the challenges they encounter, a structured questionnaire was administered to Information Systems Managers in all listed companies whose shares were actively traded at the Nairobi Stock Exchange. The results show that, the aspects that are most critical are management support, risk analysis and business impact analysis and thirdly, having a disaster recovery plan. Management has the responsibility to ensure that, the organisation is continually being able to carry out it business relationship through availability of data and information to make business decisions. Therefore, it is integral that, management is involved in disaster recovery as they have the responsibility to develop, approve and enforce the disaster recovery programmes and create support for the same amongst the employees. The results also indicated that, the risk and business impact analysis would enable the business identify the threats it is faced with and also evaluate its critical business data to ensure that the same is protected by having measures III place that would ensure availability of data for purposes of business continuity. The data also showed that, creating a disaster recovery plan is critical for all businesses as it enables having procedures to follow in event of a disaster as well as putting in place mitigation measurers to reduce the impact of a disaster on the business. Creating a disaster recovery plan would highlight the need to have a disaster recovery team in place that would have the responsibility of guiding the business in event of a disaster with the relevant team members having specific responsibilities in view of their skills and expertise. The plan would highlight the need for training of all employees to be sure that there are aware of the plan and they understand what would be expected of them in event of a disaster event. It would also ensure, that testing is done to enable updating of the plan such that it can be used in event of a disaster because it would be relevant and current. The challenges that most organisations undergo as highlighted from the results are lack of management support, lack of carrying out impact analysis, and lack of implementation and ongoing management. The survey study was carried out amongst companies quoted on the Nairobi Stock Exchange and it was realised from the results that overall, quoted organisations are aware of the need to have disaster management programmes within their organisations for purposes of preparation.