Even as integration of various business processes benefit the organization, it throws a great challenge for business continuity as the outage of one part can cause disruption in the whole business chain. Visweswaran. M, CIO, Macmillan India Ltd, is of the opinion that an organization should consider Disaster recovery planning as a practice rather than a mere protection mechanism. Organizations need to have business continuity governance, he said, in an interaction with CIOL's B.V.Shiva Shankar. Excerpts from an interview:

CIOL: What is the importance of business continuity in the current scenario?
Visweswaran.M: Today, the organizations, whether small or big, spend a lot on automating the business processes in order to stay under competitive environment. Automation in turn benefit only if it integrates with other business processes. This means information exchange across the organizations without any manual involvement. This poses a great need to protect the integrity of database across the organization. In view of this, if any part of the business process is affected due to some calamity or any other disaster, the complete business chain come to a standstill and business continuity gets affected. Therefore, the business continuity practice assumes significant importance along with other infrastructure.

CIOL: What are the likely hazards that lead to disruption or potential disaster?
VM: Hacking/virus intrusion, electrical short circuits in any data center, floods, earthquakes, etc., in any part of the globe may lead to business process disruption, which will impact various other business processes leading to business discontinuity.

CIOL: What are the main challenges for business continuity?
VM: Mainly, defining the foolproof business continuity policy itself is a great challenge. ROI justification on the business continuity practice is also a great challenge. Whether we need to insource or outsource the business continuity infrastructure is again a very difficult decision.