Jack Henry's Centurion Disaster Recovery Division

Without a doubt, business continuity is critical to every organization and it takes a plan to ensure it happens. However, having a well designed business continuity plan and keeping it regularly updated is quite a daunting task for any credit union. Yet it is something that is an absolute necessity from both a regulatory and practical standpoint. Credit Union of Southern California ($428 million in assets, 39,000 members) is one credit union that knows all too well the perils that they face: earthquakes, fires, floods, robbery, etc. That is why they turned to an industry leader in disaster recovery and business continuity planning and execution: Jack Henry's Centurion Disaster Recovery division.

When it came time to review their disaster recovery and contingency plan in 2004, Credit Union of Southern California (CU SoCal) wanted to find a well- established vendor - one on the same level as their industry-leading core system vendor, Symitar, also a subsidiary of Jack Henry, - that could help them implement a complete end-to-end solution. CU SoCal's vice president of Information Services, Ray Rounds, notes that "many organizations put together a great plan once a year, but it is never regularly tested or updated. We wanted to put a system in place that would be continually refreshed." Having worked at the credit union since 1998 and having a deep background in technology and operations, Rounds knew that business resumption is not just a technical issue, but a complex and far-reaching process that touches everyone at the credit union. He points out that "it takes quite a bit more than data processing to run our business; in fact, we need processes, procedures and documentation at the branch, department and workgroup level."

Centurion sent experienced project manager Sara Williams on-site to help the management team at CU SoCal begin the process of designing and implementing a world-class business contingency plan. Rounds enthuses that "Sarah is an incredible resource for us - I can't say enough about her!" Part of Williams's job is to challenge senior managers at the credit union with difficult 'what if' scenarios, elicit and document their responses, and then help guide them towards developing a truly useful plan. With 100 percent support from the CEO and board of directors, Rounds and the other senior managers were able to develop a business continuity plan that covered the most minute details. According to Rounds, "Sarah kept us on task during the build portion and guided us through the six-month process. She really did an awesome job."

Because every business grows and changes over time, a plan that is 12 months old can be hopelessly out of date, not to mention extremely difficult to update. That is why Centurion runs a scheduled maintenance and process improvement program that includes checklists that must be updated every couple of months or so. The Centurion process ensures the business continuity plan is regularly updated, e.g., things such the organizational chart, the number of workstations, phone contacts, and the list goes on and on. All of this updated information is sent back to Centurion's secure data center and then distributed back to the credit union both in hard copy and digital formats. "Centurion drills down into each department and finds out what they need for business continuity, and then acts as a central focal point for all of this detailed data," explains Rounds.

With seven offices and dozens of employees, there needs to be backup and coverage at many different levels for handling members, employees and department level business functions in the event of a disaster. With Centurion's deep experience and support, CU SoCal's staff now feels a lot more comfortable with their plan. "It has been a tough but good process for us," confirms Rounds, "but with Centurion's ongoing help and excellent technical support we feel very well-prepared."