"We needed a formal plan."
Technicolor Home Entertainment Services, a division of the Thomson group, handles a variety of services including DVD and CD replication and distribution for the film industry, software developers and others. Based in Camarillo, California, the division has operations in Memphis, Tennessee; Livonia, Michigan; and Guadalajara, Mexico.
With an annual manufacturing capacity of more than 1.8+ billion DVDs, it's ranked among the top two suppliers of post-production services worldwide and provides services and technology to content creators such as The Walt Disney Company, Universal Pictures, DreamWorks, Paramount, Warner Bros., Microsoft, Intuit and other hardware and software companies.
The company had a backup plan for maintaining production in the event of a catastrophe, but it had not been well documented or formalized. As Duke Potts, Executive Vice President, North America Operations, puts it, "Today everybody wants to know what your backup plan is. Some even require it before they'll sign a new contract."
When it came time to choose a vendor for the project, Potts says, the decision was "really easy. There was never any doubt about who we were going to use once we decided to do it. Our people had worked with [Synoptek] a lot at Disney and had a good working relationship, so we felt comfortable in choose them. It was a natural fit."
The engagement lasted some 6 to 8 months during which Synoptek looked at what the company's options were and documented the existing elements of a disaster plan. Potts realized going in that there were limitations to what the backup plan could cover. "Frankly," he says, "there are some things you don't have a backup plan for. For example, we only have one replication plant, in Guadalajara, Mexico. If anything were to happen during the busy season there's not enough capacity in the industry to support us. If we have a problem in April we don't really have a problem. If we have a problem in October we have a big problem.
"It's like if Fox were to have a major problem on the lot where they film all their movies, they couldn't go to other lots if they were all full. That's the way it is with us. There are limits to how far a backup plan can take you."
Taking into account such constraints, Synoptek delivered a comprehensive BCP that covered all three production facilities-a document that could now be given to Technicolor's major clients to reassure them that the company could meet their contractual needs.
Not long after the document was finalized there was a tornado near the facility in Memphis, and more recently there was a significant earthquake near one of the company's plants in Mexicali. Potts expressed relief at knowing they had a plan in place to address an emergency if one were to develop.
"Having a document is one thing. Having to take emergency action is something else. But at least if you have the document you can pull it out and not have to think about, 'Oh my God, what do we have to do?' You don't have time to plan once it happens."
As for Potts' overall reaction to the BCP, "It was excellent. It pleased Microsoft, and if you can please Microsoft you can please anybody. The Synoptek team members were excellent, they really were. They did just a remarkable job for us and if I was going to do something else tomorrow, we'd go back to a proven commodity. We'd go back to Synoptek."
Technicolor casts Synoptek as the lead in developing its Business Continuity Plan.
The company's clients wanted to see a formalized Business Continuity Plan (BCP) to assure them that Technicolor was prepared for disaster. Technicolor is the primary vendor for many of its Fortune 500 entertainment industry customers.
A comprehensive BCP plan that covered emergency plans for the company's major operations in North America.
The company now has a written plan in place that satisfies its most demanding clients' procurement requirements, and gives it clear direction for how to keep the business operating in the face of catastrophe.
