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by Brendon Livingstone on 03 November 2011
Many of us remember the images of the Christchurch Forsyth Barr building following the February earthquake where people were rescued from the building by crane and by abseiling down ropes. Equinox recently facilitated a client presentation in our Wellington Office where Forsyth Barr CIO Bruce Milne presented on their Christchurch office’s experience during and after the earthquake and how they were quickly able to restore business operations with the loss of no IT files. This post summarizes Bruce’s presentation.
Forsyth Barr has 19 offices throughout New Zealand and has 22 staff in their Christchurch office. As an NZX market participant, Forsyth Barr is required to have a business continuity plan.
Lessons from the September Earthquake
The 4 September earthquake that struck Christchurch during the early hours of a Saturday morning had little impact on Forsyth Barr’s technology and power was restored quickly. However Forsyth Barr’s crisis committee did find that they had trouble locating everyone following the earthquake. This led to Forsyth Barr establishing a txt messaging facility that could be used to broadcast messages for staff members to call in.
The February Earthquake
When the Tuesday 22 February earthquake hit at 12:51pm, 11 of the Forsyth Barr team became stranded in their temporary level 12 offices. The stairs in the building had collapsed. Forsyth Barr’s head office in Dunedin was able to keep good communication with the 11 for a number of hours through VOIP operating on UPS. The communication channel was used to keep the staff informed with details such as when other staff members were located. The staff were later rescued from the building by crane.
Four staff were missing following the earthquake but all were located in a four hour period using text messages, outlook appointment checks, and conversations with other staff from the office.
Forsyth Barr use a thin client infrastructure with all data held on servers in Dunedin (with a recovery site in Auckland). As such no data was lost as a result of the earthquake. When access was eventually gained to the premises the priority was on removing client and personal files – not technology.
Following the February Earthquake
Forsyth Barr was able to quickly establish two temporary offices within the houses of two staff members. The families’ personal broadband service bandwidth was expanded and thin client devices, routers, IP telephones setup. Christchurch business activity was re-established very quickly.
company made a quick decision to secure new permanent premises and the team has been in this new location for last three months.
The Three Things that made it Possible
The three things that made it possible for Forsyth Barr respond and quickly re-establish business operations were:
- People – Bruce made it clear that the people were the critical element to the successful re-establishment of their Christchurch business. Management made quick and strong decisions to secure new premises and invest in technology for temporary offices. Families sacrificed their homes and personal space to accommodate temporary offices in their lounges.
- Plans – Forsyth Barr had business continuity plans in place and following the September earthquake these were tuned further and facilities such as the mechanism to broadcast text messages were established.
- Luck – No one at Forsyth Barr Christchurch office was injured or killed during the earthquake –something for which the entire Forsyth Barr family are grateful for.
"Being a New Zealand owned firm, with strong ties across our offices, the staff of Forsyth Barr rallied around our Christchurch people with personal and practical support. In addition our individual and firm fundraising enabled significant donations to organisations including Urban Search and Rescue and the Rescue Helicopter Service," Bruce said.
Our many thanks to Bruce for his delivery of an excellent and real world presentation on a topic that is both timely and essential.