T 2.93 Inadequate contingency planning concept with outsourcing

Omissions in the area of contingency planning quickly have serious consequences when outsourcing. Additional difficulties result from the fact that problems might be generally distributed to three critical areas. These areas include:

• IT systems on the customer's premises
• IT systems on the outsourcing service provider's premises
• Interfaces (e.g. network connection, router, telecommunications provider) between customer and service provider

In the event of an error, this error must first be located correctly, which may be difficult depending on the type of error, as different errors might result in the same symptoms, e.g. failure of the communication connection and failure of a system on the service provider's premises. Only after the error has been identified, reasonable business continuity safeguards can be initiated.

Omissions in contingency planning concepts for the IT systems of the customer and/or service provider as well as of the interfaces always cause unnecessarily long down times with corresponding consequences for the productivity and/or service of the customer in the event of a partial or total failure.