ContinuityEastAfrica launches full business resilience capability
The facilities will include a fully equipped, data centre and 95 work-area recovery seats. ContinuityEasAfrica also offers a full suite of advisory and training services. ContinuityEastAfrica is a subsidiary of Internet Solutions Kenya and ContinuitySA.
“The launch of a full business continuity management capability is a vote of confidence in the potential of the East Africa region, and sends a very positive message to the global economy. East African companies can now credibly demonstrate that they have the capability to be resilient in the face of any disaster, while foreign companies will be able to access the same calibre of business continuity services they would get anywhere in the world,” says Pete Frielinghaus, managing director of ContinuityEastAfrica.
Globally, business has to contend with an increasingly unpredictable and volatile risk landscape, which is why risk management has become such a focus of governance codes, and thus a permanent item on board agendas. In tandem, professional business continuity management has grown in importance as companies and governments alike look for specialist help in identifying and mitigating risks, and strengthening their organisations’ ability to respond to, and recover from, any unforeseen event.
“Our data centre will conform to the highest international standards and, critically, it is also a Point of Presence (POP) for fibre networks. This means that multiple connectivity providers can terminate there, providing full latency for our clients. As a subsidiary of Internet Solutions, we will obviously also connect to its core network backbone and can access preferential pricing for clients as well,” says Frielinghaus. “But business continuity is more than a failover data centre—the fact that we can offer clients fully equipped alternative work stations in the event that their premises cannot be used is truly unique in this market.”
In addition to work-area recovery and data centre facilities, ContinuityEastAfrica will offer full advisory and training services. This means that clients can access professional business continuity management specialists as needed, as well as training to upskill their own staff in ISO 22301 (the standard for business continuity management) and the Business Continuity Institute’s Good Practice Guidelines, among others.
ContinuityEastAfrica’s main office, data centre and work-area facilities are situated on the campus of the United States International University (USIU), some 13 kilometres outside Nairobi on the Thika Highway. It also has a presence at the Internet Solutions office in Nairobi’s Westlands.
Frielinghaus says that the choice of site was driven by a number of compelling reasons. Excellent security and a convenient location close to the Thika Highway are two of these but, he adds, perhaps even more important is the relationship between USIU and ContinuityEastAfrica.
“In terms of our agreement, ContinuityEastAfrica will help USIU develop a business continuity management curriculum to create specialised modules that students doing Commerce, Business or technical degrees can take,” says Frielinghaus.
“In addition, those students will be offered work shadowing / mentoring opportunities by ContinuityEastAfrica, so they will emerge with both theoretical and practical training. We hope that this initiative will expand the pool of professional business continuity skills across the region—a strong business continuity management sector is to everybody’s advantage.”
