Information Technology Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity at United Nations Office in Nairobi, Kenya

Abstract

Organizations operate in an environment that is uncertain and unpredictable in estimating the nature, time and the magnitude of disruptions that might arise. It has therefore become important for the organizations to consider adopting a proactive approach in dealing with the uncertainty by developing a support framework to protect themselves against the outcomes of the disruptive events. The study was guided by the following objectives: To establish the extent to which United Nation has implemented IT disaster recovery plan. To establish the effect of disaster recovery on business continuity at the United Nation office in Nairobi and to determine the challenges of implementing disaster recovery. The research design adopted was descriptive research design. The study used primary data which was collected using questionnaires. The target respondents for the study were from the Finance, Human Resource and IT departments. These are the perceived technical people that were better placed to answer the research questions. In each department, 10 questionnaires were distributed. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics including tables, pie- charts, percentages, mean and standard deviation. It was found that the organization recognizes the danger on its operations as a result of disasters occurring. Majority of respondents seemed to embrace almost all the steps in the various sections of BC and DR planning. Disaster management planning should involve all the stakeholders in a firm and at the same time be holistic in the sense that it should be strategic, consider business risk management analysis, awareness and Information Life cycle managements for the development of a business continuity plan. The model adopted for the study was found to be reliable. Back-up strategies and other undocumented back-up strategies were found to be statistically insignificant even though development of a plan, risk assessment and choosing an alternative recovery site were insignificant. The major limitation for the study was scope. The findings cannot be over generalized. The study was undertaken at United Nation Offices in Nairobi and therefore there’s no room for comparison of findings with other offices. This study was also limited by other factors in that some respondents may have been biased or dishonest in their answers considering that they were all commenting on their employer. The study recommends there is need to enhance the organizational disaster recovery which will assist in the reduction of performance risk assessment. Disaster recovery helps the organization in tailored recovery plan that provide direction on how quickly to resolve the site issue. The study also recommends that there is need to manage on the organization conflict of interest among influential stakeholders, lack of clear policy guidelines and severity of disruptions. The study centered on disaster recovery principles and its effect on business continuity process in United Nation Office Nairobi. A similar study should therefore be done on other Parastatals in Kenya. This will shed more light on the disaster recovery principles and its effect on business continuity process in those Parastatals.