Case Study: Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Enhancement at KELAG
Transforming KELAG's disaster recovery capabilities, reducing recovery time from 12 hours to 2 hours for Austria's leading energy provider.
🎯 Critical Infrastructure Challenge
Sandy Smajic served as Security Consultant at KELAG, one of Austria's leading energy service providers delivering electricity, natural gas, and heat nationwide. He spearheaded a critical Business Continuity Planning (BCP) and Disaster Recovery (DR) initiative for a company where every hour of downtime costs millions of euros and affects over 500,000 customers.
⚠️ Critical Starting Position
Existing RTO: 12 Hours
Unacceptably long outage for critical infrastructure - half a day without power for customers
Financial Impact
Millions of euros in losses per hour of downtime, plus regulatory penalties
Target: Reduce RTO from 12 hours to 2 hours
🚀 Comprehensive Transformation Approach
Business Impact Analysis
Identified most critical systems and validated appropriate RTO/RPO requirements
Cross-Functional Testing
Tabletop simulations to full-scale DR drills across IT, Finance, HR, Operations
Technical Optimization
Redundant systems, accelerated backups, automated failover mechanisms
🔧 Key Implementation Challenges
Cross-Departmental Coordination
Bridging silos between IT, Finance, HR, Operations, and field technicians with different priorities
24/7 Operations Constraint
Scheduling intensive recovery drills in live production environment without disrupting service
Legacy System Limitations
Certain systems couldn't meet 2-hour target without infrastructure upgrades
📈 Remarkable Results Achieved
🏆 Strategic Business Impact
The transformation delivered benefits far beyond the technical metrics. KELAG now stands as a model for critical infrastructure resilience, with other energy providers adopting similar approaches.
Financial Protection
Massive reduction in potential revenue losses and regulatory penalties from extended outages
Cultural Transformation
Business continuity became shared responsibility across enterprise, not just IT concern
"The project didn't just improve our recovery time - it transformed our entire approach to operational resilience and gave us confidence that we can handle any emergency." - Executive Management, KELAG
💡 Critical Success Learnings
Regular Testing is Essential
Realistic simulations revealed unforeseen weaknesses and built organizational confidence
Cross-Departmental Collaboration is Critical
Business continuity requires "the whole village" - not just IT department
Continuous Improvement Culture
BCP/DR is ongoing commitment, not one-time project - requires regular reviews and updates