| |
| |
ICM further strengthened its position as a pioneer of best practice in business continuity,
by being the gold sponsor of the BSI’s Business Continuity Management conference in London from
December 5th to 7th, which launched the new BS25999 code of practice.
The new standard, the first specifically for business continuity, establishes
definitions of key business continuity processes, creating a common framework
against which organisations can show effective business continuity management,
as well as allowing the sharing of good practice.
ICM is particularly looking to provide for an early, cost-effective method for
SMEs to rapidly establish what they need to do to achieve this new British
standard whilst benchmarking themselves against many like sized UK organisations.
The establishment of BS25999 demonstrates the proliferation of the business
continuity industry, and its development will have a great impact on the UK
economy.
Mike Osborne, Managing Director of ICM Business Continuity Services, states:
“Many smaller companies still believe business continuity to be a luxury that
only larger organisations can afford the time and money to implement. The
truth is, business continuity is vital for everyone. One incident that leaves
a small company unavailable for business could have a very swift knock-on effect
to its partners, suppliers and customers, with potentially disastrous
consequences. Supply chain continuity is one of the key concerns within the
UK marketplace, therefore every link in the chain needs to have some kind of
business continuity strategy in place.”
ICM is currently working with an independent company, which has developed an online
self-certification and benchmarking system to facilitate early comparison of these
increasing standards.
** Look out for further updates on this tool! **
BS 25999-1 Code of Practice for Business Continuity Management
|
| |
| |
Supply chain risk is a growing concern among large organisations. This is
increasingly seeing much smaller organisations having to consider business
continuity for the first time. ICM has always been a standard-bearer for
availability and accessibility of business continuity to all organisations,
regardless of size or turnover.
Disaster Cover Direct is ICM’s most recent product development, created as a specific response
to customers’ concerns about the perceived cost and complications of having a business continuity
plan in place.
It has been designed as a straightforward, low cost solution, ideal for businesses with as few as 10
and up to 150 office staff based on site. It offers replacement IT equipment express-shipped to site,
internet and email access and alternative pre-equipped local office facilities, allowing companies to
relocate a business-critical team to any one of ICM’s 12 specialist Business Continuity centres which
provide 5,000 seats on permanent standby throughout the UK.
Disaster Cover Direct also supports business continuity best practice by incorporating early education
and associate Membership of the Business Continuity Institute (BCI), providing immediate access to
their renowned publications, courses and seminars.
Terry Sheridan, Product Support Manager reiterates: “I believe that BC professionals in larger organisations have a duty to help
create supply chain resilience by propagating business continuity through their smaller suppliers. It
is in the interests of the entire UK economy to ensure that all organisations receive education,
assistance and affordable service in their business continuity provision, irrespective of size.
Disaster Cover Direct provides all these things and is not just a ’tick in the box’ service. It’s
my firm hope that by making such services affordable within the industry, ICM will encourage take-up
of business continuity planning among a greater number of UK SMEs.”
| SERVICE |
INCLUDED |
| 10, 20 or 30 seats (PC / telephone / desk / chair) |
 |
| 2 days recovery rehearsal testing with technical support |
|
| 1 x fax / 1 x photocopier / 1 x printer |
|
| 512K Internet connection(with firewall) |
|
| Intel servers |
|
| 1 year affiliate membership of the Business Continuity Institute |
|
| 1 day Business Continuity planning induction course |
|
| Web-based support portal |
|
| Invocation procedures manual (CD) |
|
| Continuity site guide (CD) |
|
| Critical document storage facilities |
|
Are you worried about supply chain risks? Then why not point your suppliers at ICM’s
Disaster Cover Direct?
|
| |
| |
ICM was touring the UK in November, delivering educational seminars on the
prominent subjects of virtualisation and its potential impact on business
continuity.
Existing and potential customers were invited to attend the seminars, which were
held in ICM’s regional Business Continuity centres throughout the UK. The days
were split into two sessions, with the virtualisation seminar in the morning
session and business continuity in the afternoon. Delegates could attend one or
both of the in-depth seminars, which were aimed at IT professionals, business
directors or anyone involved in business continuity planning within their
organisation.
The seminars also offered a tour of the state of the art facilities and a live
demonstration of VMware, the leading global virtualisation software. Overall
feedback was excellent, with delegates praising the seminars as informative,
relevant and insightful. Following this success, ICM is looking to plan further
roadshows to present salient topics in the future.
|
| |
| |
ICM has recently become one of only a small number companies in the UK to be
accredited as a VMware Authorised Consulting (VAC) partner, the new service
level offered in partnership with VMware.
The VAC Partner Program is made up of a wide variety of resellers and systems
integrators who can offer VMware-certified consulting services in addition to
VMware products.
VAC partners are required to train and certify their consultants to ensure the
highest levels of services and customer satisfaction.
Jason Martin, director of professional services at VMware, said: “The widespread
adoption of our products around the world has created strong customer demand for
consulting services that meet our stringent standards. Organisations with
professional service businesses can meet that demand, deliver services using best
practices and materials created by VMware and increase billable time and margins."
ICM’s wealth of experience in delivering virtualisation solutions makes us an ideal
partner for any organisation looking to virtualise their infrastructure.
Link to white paper:
Making Your Business Disaster Ready with Virtual Infrastructure system
|
| |
| |
ICM further added to its wealth of business continuity experience with the recent recruitment of Trevor Hall.
Trevor comes to us from Computacenter where he worked for almost 10 years, eight
of which were spent establishing, growing and managing Computacenter’s Disaster
Recovery business. During that time Trevor worked with ICM both as a customer
and a services partner.
Prior to this he worked in a number of IT management roles and in addition to
his extensive business continuity experience, Trevor has wide knowledge of IT
support and technical services.
Trevor brings over 25 years experience of developing, managing and selling IT
services.
|
|
 |
On 1st October ICM Recovery Services plc changed its name to
ICM Business Continuity Services plc
whilst at the same time fully incorporating the acquisition of
Assurity within a single trading company
Mike Osborne, Managing Director, said: “To me, ‘Recovery’ implied that we only get
involved after the event and our services are far more proactive than that.
Particularly with some of the newer on-line, back-up and replication services,
we felt the name needed to better reflect what we do – that is to provide business
continuity. It’s a subtle change but one we felt it was important to make”
|
ICM’s financial results for 2006 delivered profits that were ahead of market
expectations, with our Business Continuity services in particular achieving
strong organic growth.
Turnover for Business Continuity rose by 17% to £16.4m with operating profit rising to £4m.
The two main features of the year to June 2006, being that we successfully opened a stunning 31,000sq ft
Scotland Central centre located in Hamilton from which we are now delivering our entire range of ship
to site, Mobile, Hosted and Workarea solutions. This was followed by our largest Business Continuity
centre to date in Romford, Essex. Between them the two centres added a further 2,200+ positions and
hosting for more than 200 racks.
The investment in the £30million Romford centre was in response to our customers’ concerns about the
increased threat to City locations following the July 7 bombings in London. This made ICM the first
business continuity provider to open a centre outside London in the aftermath of the bombings. The
centre was brought into operation within a very tight and demanding timescale and complements existing
centres in Wapping, Sevenoaks and Loudwater (Wycombe).
The year once again set a new record of investment in both existing and new BC facilities.
View Report and Accounts
|
Rejection of approach from Netstore Plc / approach from another party
Further to its announcement dated 6 December 2006, the Board of ICM (the
'Board'), in conjunction with its advisers, has carefully considered the
proposal from Netstore Plc ('Netstore') with the benefit of the information
recently received from Netstore. The Board has concluded that an offer on the
terms proposed by Netstore would not be in the best interests of ICM's
shareholders, employees or customers and, accordingly, Netstore's proposal has
been rejected by the Board.
View RNS announcement
Possible offer from Netstore Plc ('Netstore')
The Board of Directors of ICM (the 'Board') notes the announcement issued by the
Board of Netstore and confirms that it has today received from Netstore certain
information requested at the meeting between the two companies on 8 November
2006.
View RNS announcement
|
|
