COVID-19 has forced businesses around the world to change how they maintain safety and business continuity. Here are some areas which companies need to focus on to ensure business resilience.
Create a business continuity plan that identifies the key activities you need to maintain to ensure seamless operations-- and how you intend to keep them going in the event of a disruption.
Despite disruptions, organizations must still meet their industry regulatory requirements and comply with service level agreements. Companies should have a proactive plan in place that reviews the rules they need to follow, and to include them in contingency plans within their SLAs to ensure flexibility and compliance.
Now that so many people are working from home, business leaders need to make sure their employees are trained in safe cyber practices and have set up secure processes, such as an enterprise VPN and zero-trust architecture for multi-cloud solutions, devices, and third-party technologies.
Identifying the number of staff and the expertise needed to perform and manage the necessary functions and services of the organization is a critical step in building your business resilience. By identifying key roles and employees, leaders can ensure that they are prepared to continue business operations and have the skill sets they need to keep the organization functional.
The pandemic has hurt the revenue and liquidity of most businesses. Leaders should review their cash flow pipeline and find ways to cut costs in order to limit their long-term losses. This can mean reducing capital expenditure except for investments that serve the long-run operational interests of the organization, such as a robust remote office platform.
