Priceline CIO Shares His Bird Flu Plan

With new cases of the deadly HN51 avian flu being reported weekly, the potential for it to migrate to North America seems almost assured. What are companies doing to prepare? One executive at Priceline shares his company’s plans in a new Q&A.

In the article on the Network World website, Senior Editor Denise Dubie asks the company’s CIO Ron Rose about how his company is preparing for a potential flu pandemic. In the interview, Rose “revealed that consistent planning for disasters will help IT departments better equip their companies to face a pandemic,” Dubie says.

Among the topics Rose discusses are the measures the company is taking to prepare, whether or not the company feels susceptible to an outbreak, and if employees will be able to work from home in the event of an outbreak.

Rose tells Dubie that the company has a “long history of enabling its workers to work in a mobile manner.” He believes that every company, no matter what its industry, is susceptible and that pandemic planning should be just another form of business continuity planning. 

When asked if there are any technological measures companies can take to prepare in advance of an outbreak, Rose offers his six tips on what to do, including:

1. Investigate the cost of authentication techniques for employees

2. Find out how long it would take to get an outside accessible version of the company intranet

3. Collect the contact information of employees for all managers

4. Create a plan to inform your employees about how to communicate effectively with one another

5. Research your communications and VPN throughput capacity

6. Indagate if you should add more remote VoIP capabilities