| dc.description.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. | en |
