Surface Ripples

COVID and Continuity

Most businesses will (or should) have Business Continuity Plans (BCPs) for disaster scenarios.  These usually cover scenarios like inaccessible premises, bad weather and other factors that may impact that particular business.

When the coronavirus pandemic hit, almost every business found itself in a position of having to activate all or part of its BCP as staff were sent to work from home.  Only ‘essential’ staff and businesses were permitted ‘on site’.

I’m in a country that finds itself in the middle of a ‘second wave’ of community transmission infections after over one year without any.  Without wanting to go into the reasons as to why the second wave started, it is clear that one critical part of the BCP infrastructure is unable (at least temporarily) to cope with the new, increased demands on it.

I refer to broadband internet – the ‘lifeblood’ of many businesses, no matter their size and number of employees.  In this case, the second wave has resulted in a much heavier load factor on the infrastructure and a consequent impact across the board.  

The lesson this taught me is that BCPs are all very well, provided not everyone has to invoke them at the same time.  In such a scenario, infrastructure may not be able to cope.  Problems will arise.  

In this case, we may have to allow for degraded service and deliveries unless we can somehow compensate by hiring extra temporary staff, buying more technology, building additional ‘excess’ (and spare) capacity (with the attendant costs that this implies) and/or demanding that ‘critical’ suppliers’ (e.g.: utility companies, internet service providers, etc.) review the critical parts of their respective BCPs.

In reality, many of us will have to acknowledge the simple truth: much as we try, we can’t control everything!

I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management.  I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.  For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.

Labels: Crisis Management, Customer Care, Leadership, Strategy

posted by William Martin @ 15:24