Update On Avida Fire: All OK, Disaster Plan Running

July 2, 2014 by Dave Haynes

I sent a note to Avida‘s David Reale after hearing that his company’s Toronto offices burned to the ground earlier in the day.

“No one was hurt,” says the CEO. “All our systems are fine and completely intact.  Terrible loss of premises, for sure.”

The company has pushed out a news release this evening letting customers and partners know all is OK and the business interruption was minimal.

AVIDA announced today that it has resumed operations immediately following a fire that occurred at the company’s head office location early this morning. The fire occurred at a time when the building was unoccupied, therefore no injuries or fatalities resulted from this incident on Canada Day.

David Reale, CEO of AVIDA, said: “We were very fortunate that the fire took place at a time when the building was empty. We have relocated to our hot standby facility and will continue to operate as normal with minimal to no impact to our business.  All customer screens, systems and content deployed internationally remained unaffected by the fire.  It is a testament to the AVIDA support teams’ infrastructure planning and contingency processes that our partners and customers were not affected.  I want to thank everyone who has shown tremendous support and assistance today.”

AVIDA remains committed to delivering innovative digital communications systems to its customers and will continue to build on its reputation of exceptional service.

Avida, if you don’t know the company, describes itself this way:

Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, AVIDA is a global leader in providing full service in-store marketing and communications systems. AVIDA enables retailers and brand marketers the power to improve their in-store experience and bottom line by directly influencing consumers and their purchasing decision through dynamic, relevant, and real-time messaging. As the market leader in digital communication, AVIDA offers an easy and effective service by providing all aspects of deployment, from procurement to installation and support, to content management and creation.

So much for a relaxing day off for the Avida crew… Many of us have been in meetings in which someone droned on about the need to not only build a disaster recovery and management plan, but test it. Avida’s experience today should be a big, resounding bonk to the forehead that disasters do happen, and if you  plan for them, you get through them.

Image: screen grab from 680 News/City News