"Contact centres are complex institutions and many dimensions need to be considered when deciding on a recovery site," said Steven King, business development manager of ContinuitySA, supplier of business continuity management services.
"Based on our years of experience in providing this service to blue-chip clients across the continent, we believe that the following issues need to be considered when making a decision"
Using IaaS also means that the infrastructure can be scaled up and down, something that can be vital during a recovery. "When an organisation invokes a disruption it will typically move around one-third of its contact centre workforce onto the recovery site, and may only provide for a corresponding proportion of normal voice and data traffic. However, it is usually the case that for the first few days after a disaster there is a significant spike in calls," said King. "Under an IaaS model, the provider could scale up capacity, such as the bandwidth required, for that period."
A related question is whether the building is serviced by multiple telecommunications providers. A contact centre is only as good as its links to the outside world and being restricted to one supplier is not acceptable, from the cost and redundancy points of view.