Are you ready? Getting back to business after a disaster.

• Author: Lanter, Amy
• Position: IN FOCUS: A Message from the Editor - Editorial

Of more than 200 IT leaders who responded to a CDW "2010 Business Continuity Straw Poll" (www.computeruser.com), 25% indicated that in 2010 they had experienced a significant network disruption that lasted more than four hours. CDW estimated these disruptions cost those companies $1.7 billion in profits, based on the average number of days closed and the average daily profits of U.S. businesses.

The survey results also revealed that 82% of the most significant network disruptions could be reduced or prevented by implementing a comprehensive business continuity/disaster recovery (BC/DR) plan. But, although the vast majority of respondents indicated they were taking steps to improve their disaster recovery capabilities, 20% indicated they were not.

Information Management (IM) readers, who, no doubt, are on the proactive side of that group, will find that ARMA International's recently published Emergency Management for Records and Information Programs, 2nd Ed,. is an indispensable resource for beefing up their business continuity plans. (It is available for purchase at www.arma.org/bookstore.) This issue of IM also addresses the importance of a BC/DR plan for protecting vital records and information.

In his cover article, "Emergency: How to Build a Document Unit for Hazardous Incident Response," John Kain explains how a strong records and information management (RIM) program provides a solid foundation for building a highly skilled document unit to respond to hazardous incidents.

RIM is important to all aspects of risk mitigation, disaster response, and disaster recovery, affirms Virginia A. Jones, CRM, FAI, in "How to Avoid Disaster: RIM Plays a Crucial Role in Business...