Keeping Business Going.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Business Continuity

On Sept. 12, the day after the terrorist attacks, executives at investment bankers Houlihan Lokey Howard and Zukin did an assessment. Their offices in New York, some distance from the World Trade Center, were closed, but all their people there were safe. Clients were calling, and deals were still in the pipeline -- but the nation's airports were shuttered, and overnight delivery services like Federal Express, key movers of documents, had slowed to a snaillike crawl.

The Los Angeles-based firm quickly moved much of its work onto "digital workspaces" provided by IntraLinks Inc., a New York firm specializing in Web-based document-sharing for syndicated loans and other financings. Houlihan had been using IntraLinks in a limited way for similar services for about 18 months.

"Digital workspaces are efficient in cutting travel and shipping. Now, they are a way of getting jobs done," says Bill Perry, Houlihan's webmaster. "We said, 'Let's use the digital workspaces more extensively than we have been.' Nobody saw [the attacks] coming, but now that they have happened, we need to continue on and not let business suffer any more."

He adds that the near-shutdown of overnight delivery sent Houlihan to "Plan B. We know that a piece of paper is good, but you can make one" by scanning and sharing documents over the Web. "Even as of day two, clients wanted to know where their deal was. We had to react almost immediately."

The term "disaster recovery" brings to mind technology suppliers like International Business Machines Corp., SunGard Data Systems and Comdisco Inc., the three principal providers of computer backup systems. (Actually, Comdisco is preparing to sell its disaster recovery unit, after filing for bankruptcy this past summer because of failed Internet investments.) But there is more to "business continuity" than simply taking over from hobbled computer systems, especially if offices are destroyed or need to be evacuated for lengthy periods.

Alternate workspace providers, temporary workforce suppliers and real estate brokers in the New York area found their phones ringing off the hook as affected companies scrambled to bring their operations back toward normal. Many corporations were unprepared -- complacent, some experts suggest -- as a result of terrorists' inactivity in the U.S. and non-events like the Year 2000 computer change, which had preoccupied technology managers for years but proved far less of a bang than a whimper.

The need for...