Businesses often have a business continuity plan in preparation for adverse circumstances that could hamper business activity. The plan states the steps the business will take inorder to ensure ongoing operations during a disaster and during recovery from the disaster.
The emergence of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) has raised concerns of whether businesses have the capability and plans to cope with effects of the pandemic. In most cases the Business continuity plan covers common cases of fires, Cyber attacks and floods but have not considered pandemic scenarios making these resilience plans insufficient.
Businesses like Microsoft, Facebook and Google are encouraging their employees from certain offices to work from home following reported cases of employee infection or regional lockdown. This is possible for these businesses as they have been considering flexible work hours for employees, they have also trained and tested remote operations which is not the case for many businesses.
Governments like China, Italy and several States of the US have announced and enforced state of emergency across certain regions. These announcements have found many businesses ill prepared to handle business continuity during these tough times.
Business continuity planning is not only important for businesses but also for governments. Even with schools closed, China still carries on education for students at all levels through teleconferencing, on the other hand Italy is struggling to cope with the case of school closure during this period.
Cisco, Google and Microsoft have announced free licenses for their teleconferencing tools for remote operations and online meetings to help organizations deal with the pandemic.
It is important for businesses to review their Business Continuity Planning, embrace digital/remote work, virtual collaboration for employees and train their employees for these scenarios as the risk of business disruption from the pandemic increases.