What is a Business Continuity plan?
Businesses are facing new challenges due to COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic, and each day is coming with new restrictions threatening business continuity.
In an ideal scenario, all business owners and leaders should have a contingency plan ready to protect their ongoing business activities. But this aspect is neglected by a majority of leaders. A situation such as the current Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic has heightened the already urgent need for formulating a plan to ensure business continuity.
A business continuity plan during the coronavirus pandemic is a plan to drive business activities through all the restrictions imposed on doing business, such as
- Extreme social distancing
- Self-quarantine for 14 days after an international travel
- Isolation for 14 days or till you recover if you get infected
- Lockdown of cities by shutting down intra-city and inter-city public transport
- Lockdown of international boundaries
- Allowing private sector employees to work from home (WFH)
COVID-19 has impacted almost every business on the Earth
Coronavirus Pandemic has already caused a lot of disruption to the businesses
- Dependent on the movement of goods – global sourcing and global supply chain for carrying out their production activities – e.g. production of Diet Coke which is dependent on the sugar substitutes produced in China (2)
- Dependent on the movement of people – travel and tourism (3,4)
- Non-essential things – Business like clothing, Jewelry, Cosmetics, recreational have been shut down completely affecting peopler and owners
- It’s also affected families – society – where events – marriages are also cancelled
Nobody was prepared
192 countries in the word – developed, developing, and less developed countries – all are sailing in the same boat!
How will you plan business continuity for your business during COVID-19 Pandemic?
Step 1 Decide what business continuity means to your business!
If you are a manufacturing company, business continuity would mean ensuring the continuity of production lines and running of factories.
For an airline, business continuity means being able to fly as per the planned schedule.
For an IT/ Engineering services company, business continuity would mean honouring commitment for project service delivery without any delays.
Step 2 Do a quick risk assessment
Understand the mandatory restrictions imposed by your Government for containing the spread of coronavirus in your country, state and city. Quickly assess various risks to your business and put them into two buckets
- Unavoidable risks – for example
- A compulsory shutdown of factories due to city lockdown ordered by the Government
- Stopping of production line due to non-availability of imported raw material due to international border lockdown
- Shutting down of private offices in your city
- Avoidable risks
- Delay in completion of technology projects which are not dependent on any physical contact
- A decline in the quality of the project delivered using an online platform
- Closing down a business which can be run from the home office using online tools
- Being emotionally attached to the business plans that call for change given the new circumstances
Circumventing legal compliances in a hurry to stay afloat
Step 3 Find out alternatives to run your business
- As a first step, please check with your industry association if you are allowed to run your business from a remote location E.g. IT business where people are a key resource, are allowed by the Government to work from home
- Plan and enable employees to work from home (WFH)
Evaluate if you can allow your teams to work remotely after
- Discussing with your Technical, Delivery Heads, Project Managers and the Leadership team in consultation with your Account Managers and the clients
Equip your teams with all the tools and resources which will facilitate a smooth transition to working for home, for example –
- Access to laptops or shifting of office desktops to home offices
- Access to high-speed Internet connection (many ISPs are launching special plans for WFH)
- Right Tools
- Communication – e.g. Slack, MS Team
- Work & time tracking – e.g. Whizible
- Calls – e.g. Skype, Zoom
Step 4 Prepare a 5-point WFH Guide for making remote working during COVID-19 pandemic successful and measurable
- Tools
- Timings
- Communication
- Operations
- Mental health
Step 5 Use a remote project management software to measure your remote team performance effectively
This is especially useful for project-based businesses such as IT services or engineering services, outsourcing technology services, where security, governance and employee productivity plays a critical role in project service delivery.
Project-based businesses are in a good position to offer work from home (WFH) option to their employees since the Government of India has allowed them to do so.
We, at Whizible, can help you ensure the business continuity for your project services business.
Call us now at +91 8554983315 to get help from Whizible Experts on Remote Working
Sources used
- https://www.cnbctv18.com/finance/iba-tells-banks-to-formulate-business-continuity-plan-5539281.htm
- https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/02/27/coronavirus-coca-cola-warns-impact-diet-coke-supply-chain/4890071002/
- https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/services/travel/impact-of-coronavirus-on-indian-tourism-could-run-into-thousands-of-crores-of-rupees/articleshow/74592482.cms
- https://www.wttc.org/about/media-centre/press-releases/press-releases/2020/coronavirus-puts-up-to-50-million-travel-and-tourism-jobs-at-risk-says-wttc/
