Disruptions Are Inevitable – Practical Lessons from The Optus Outage
| Key takeaways 1. Business disruptions are not a matter of “if” but “when.” The Optus outage, affecting millions, vividly highlights the vulnerability of businesses and individuals to such disruptions. 2. Avoiding complacency is vital. Disruptions, even if seemingly unlikely, can have significant impacts. 3. Effective and prompt communication during crises is critical to managing expectations and alleviating concerns. 4. Diversifying suppliers, implementing redundancy in critical systems, cross-training employees, geographic distribution, and financial diversification are fundamental business continuity strategies, including manual processing and retaining cash operations. |
Business disruptions are inevitable. They are not a matter of “if” but “when.”
Whether it’s a power outage, communication failure, or a technological glitch, businesses must proactively prepare for such inevitable challenges. A resource-based approach focusing on power, communication, and technology failures can significantly simplify your business continuity management.
The recent Optus telecommunications outage on November 8, 2023, which impacted over 10 million customers and 400,000 businesses across Australia, underscores the vulnerability of individuals and businesses to disruptions.
Individuals faced difficulties in making calls, sending messages, accessing the Internet, and using mobile banking and online shopping services. Businesses, unable to process EFTPOS payments or utilise online services, either closed for the day or resorted to cash-only transactions. Even government, health services, and public transport systems were not immune to the outage’s effects.
Avoid the complacency trap and take ownership
Avoiding complacency is crucial. People think that disruptions or disasters won’t happen to them or underestimate the potential impact. While the likelihood may be small, the impact can be significant.
Planning for the inevitable disruptions requires time, effort, and resources. Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts. It is all part of good organisational governance.
To say that COVID was a rare “1 in 100 years” event that nobody could have planned for it is incorrect. It’s a justification for poor management. Pandemics have been part of our lives for centuries. Nothing is ever a surprise in hindsight.
Relying on business interruption insurance and contracts to financially compensate you months after the disruptive event is cold comfort to your damaged reputation that took years to build when your customers could not get their products or services on that day when the Internet was down.
Communicate early and don’t self-create another disaster!
Effective and prompt communication is key during crises.
The Optus CEO made her first public statement about the outage at around 1:30 pm, that’s over 9 hours after the problem first emerged around 4:05 am. The delay had self-created another disaster – a public relations disaster!
Giving your team the authority to immediately issue a pre-approved statement like this will go a long way in calming nerves and managing expectations:
“We regret to inform you that we have experienced a major network outage that has affected our mobile, internet, and landline services across Australia.
We have started working to restore our services and apologise for the inconvenience and frustration this has caused to our customers, businesses, and public services.
The outage occurred around 4:05 am AEDT on Wednesday, November 8, 2023.
We understand the importance of reliable and continuous services for our customers and the community and will provide further updates as new information becomes available.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact our customer service team at XXXX or visit our website at XXXX. Thank you for your continued support and loyalty.”
Don’t be paralysed by or drawn into the legal game about such notification.
People just want to know what’s happening and when services will be up and running. Keeping people in the dark will only escalate the problem further, fuelling unnecessary rumours.
Don’t put all golden eggs in one basket
Golden eggs represent critical assets, operations, or components of the business that are essential for your business’s success and survival. These could include key personnel, technology systems, Internet connection, or other elements that, if lost or compromised, could significantly impact your business and revenues.
Avoid over-reliance on a single source or strategy as it can expose your business to heightened risks and vulnerabilities. Instead, diversify your investments, resources, and strategies to spread risk and enhance overall resilience.
Try adopting the following business continuity strategies:
- Diversification of suppliers – Relying on a single supplier for crucial services could pose a significant risk if that supplier faces disruptions. Diversifying and having multiple suppliers can mitigate this risk. Don’t just rely on Optus; obtain a Wi-Fi dongle or pocket/portable Wi-Fi modem and data plan from Telstra and/or Vodafone as backups.
- Redundancy in critical systems – Depending solely on a single data centre or technology infrastructure increases vulnerability. Implementing redundancy and having backup systems in different locations (e.g., through cloud-based solutions) ensures that your business operations can continue even if one system fails.
- Cross-training employees – If specific employees possess unique skills critical to your business, cross-training others can prevent a single point of failure in case of people’s absences.
- Geographic distribution – Spreading operations across different geographic locations can reduce the impact of localised disasters, such as natural disasters or regional economic downturns.
- Financial diversification – Over-reliance on a single source of revenue or a particular market segment can make your business vulnerable to economic downturns. Diversifying revenue streams and markets can provide stability.
Going old school
Literally, ‘cash is king’.
If you are a small business owner and operating in the retail and hospitality industries, having everything cashless and electronic can cause significant financial losses to you especially when there are:
- No Internet connectivity to your store.
- No banking portal or credit card terminals to process your payments.
- No power or electricity to run your machines (and turn on the lights).
- No working equipment to process your transactions.
- No staff to provide services to your customers.
These are the key resources or dependencies that you should have contingency plans for.
Going fully digital requires more contingency and business continuity planning than ever before because more components are not within your control and visibility.
When all else fails, pen and paper (i.e., manual processing) is also king. Having manual workarounds when there is a technology failure and ensuring that your employees are trained in performing manual processing will go a long way in ensuring that your business can operate during major outages.
Unfortunately, digitisation has made us lazier and complacent.
Focus on Internet connectivity
The Optus outage underscores the significance of proactive measures to safeguard against connectivity challenges.
Focusing on proactive measures, such as diversifying providers, implementing redundancy, and ensuring effective communication, are crucial for businesses seeking to strengthen their connectivity resilience in an increasingly interconnected world.
In summary, we don’t plan to fail but fail to plan
The recent Optus outage serves as an urgent wake-up call, a stark reminder that business disruptions are not mere possibilities but imminent certainties. It’s time to shed the illusion of invincibility and embrace proactive but cost-effective strategies that anticipate and mitigate disruption-related risks before they unfold.
The lessons are clear – Early communication, diversified strategies, and practical contingency plans are not luxuries but necessities to maintain your business operations and reputation.
Foresight is the true currency of success.