Business Continuity

Preparing for the future

Prepare for the future

The COVID-19 pandemic has really tested the ‘preparedness’ of organisations’ business continuity plans. In many cases, organisations we have spoken to during the initial response phase already had flexible working arrangements in place, but they never envisaged anything on this scale before, where 100% of their workforce would be required to work away from the office environment. There were therefore a lot of short-term tactical solutions implemented in terms of equipping people with laptops, virtual desktop environments and onboarding collaboration solutions - as well as making provisions to expand bandwidth - to ensure business productivity levels were maintained.

Where we saw businesses that were slower to transition from an office-based workforce to a remote model, these were the ones that hadn’t invested in the various elements we have looked at in the preceding sections or, at the very least, laid the foundation to be able to ‘pivot’ quickly enough, which lead to wider business disruption. However, as noted earlier, in cases where business leaders were hesitant about whether they could operate in a remote workforce model, they soon realised that the technology was already there to support them in taking this step. Now these solutions have largely been successfully implemented, it is important that the right processes and policies are established to maximise their effectiveness - beginning with a robust, intelligent business continuity plan.

Let’s consider what such a plan is likely to look like in the post-COVID-19 landscape…

Moving from tactical to strategic planning

Now we have settled into a remote workforce model, a period of reflection is needed for many businesses. We are seeing this first-hand, as the discussions we are currently having with our customers are centred around establishing longer term strategic plans regarding how their business environments will cope with similar events going forward. Of course, nobody can really foresee what the future holds, which means we need to put the building blocks in place now, ensuring these are deeply embedded in organisations’ policies and processes to mitigate any future disruption.

There are three factors that should be considered:

1. Scalability. Some existing technologies - particularly on-premises legacy systems - are not easily scalable, which means moving from a tactical to strategic approach will enable you to build in elasticity to your plans, both in terms of long-term planning for future business growth and short-term responses to the unexpected.

2. Cost control. Historically, when business continuity plans were drafted, there were capital investment considerations of having a secondary, fallback office location. What COVID-19 has shown is that instead of servicing a secondary location, funds can be diverted to SaaS-based technologies that enable remote workers to stay productive whilst providing significant opportunities for longer-term cost savings.

3. Data protection. Thanks to the rapid implementation of new technologies and applications, organisations have had to re-think how data is secured and governed within a remote working environment, ensuring speed and accessibility is balanced against security and compliance requirements.

Building a successful business continuity plan

The current pandemic does suggest that where mistakes in the past have been made, lessons will be learnt that will inform how we think about business continuity in the future. There are two perspectives to consider here:

“How do I create an agile business environment so that my workforce is able to work flexibly from any location, on any device and still feel part of the fabric of the company?”

“How do we continue to serve our customers/end-users and remove wider business disruption?”

These, in turn, raise further questions that must be answered:

Can systems and services be accessed from anywhere, from any device, while avoiding reliance on any one failure point to access core systems? Are your infrastructure and application estates currently fit for purpose?

How secure is the access to those platforms and how are you making it safe and secure to do this (access over VPN, for example)?

How do your teams continue to deliver exceptional customer experiences? Do your teams have access to familiar applications to deliver core support functions, such as marketing and finance, to ensure customers remain satisfied with the services provided?

Moving forward from a traditional office-based culture, how will you embed the same levels of company inclusion and staff morale, to continue striving towards a common goal from any location?

When considering any development to your infrastructure or processes, bear these questions in mind. This way, you will be well-placed to adapt to any changes in the digital landscape and any crises of the level of COVID-19. In other words, you will have achieved a truly futureproof organisation.