Do you have a business continuity plan (BCP) in place for your business?

When disaster strikes, generally, all hell breaks loose! We are all surrounded by coronavirus or Covid-19. Countries have been literally brought to standstill with the lockdowns. Big businesses have employees working from home. SMEs are all in a very tight spot. Even most of the media industry is busy working from remote locations, unless necessary.

Definitely, these are not easy times for the enterprises. Their business continuity is getting affected by the extraordinary circumstances. Every company is battling with an influx of queries from their employees and customers. In times of social distancing, it's imperative for enterprises, employees and customers to stay connected.

There are manufacturers and dealers, as well. In some cases, manufacturing units have come to a standstill, or, even the production has stalled. Smaller factories cannot run, given the lack of personnel and other factors. Some new and enterprising companies have literally come to a halt. Perhaps, there was no back-up plan on how to deal with a crisis!

Indian companies are looking to now include automation in manufacturing, given the current times, some say. Technology is the center of everything. The CIO or the CTO has to have the full view of the entire business process. However, to do that purposefully, requires the complete knowledge of technology.

About a decade or more ago, few people had the ability to work remotely. Today, we are working on an enterprise class communication platform. The human-machine collaboration is very high.

Covid-19 will likely be the new normal over the next two-three years. WFH is now the need of the hour and the norm. BYoD is working fine, remotely. Some e-commerce and food delivery startups have requested the Indian government for the usage of drones for their work.

India is also using drones with 4G and high-definition video. There will be a lot more location-based enablement of services. Some infrastructure is already present in India, as an example, telecom. Virtual call centers, voice bots, chat bots, etc., can further lighten the burden.

Need for BCP
Now, all of this has led to a single call: how do you keep the various businesses running? Is there any business continuity plan (BCP) in place for your business?

How do you go about making up the BCP? I can think of a few. First, companies need to identify the broad scope of the BCP. Next, they should identify the key business areas and the critical functions that are running. They should also need to identify the dependencies and inter-dependencies between the various business areas and functions.

Next, they need to plan out the acceptable minimum downtime required for each critical function. Finally, there should be a plan to maintain the operations.

In this context, Dataquest has organized a series of webinars, starting April 14, at 3-4pm, on the title, BCP.  The first webinar on April 14 features a talk by Vijay Sethi, CIO, CHRO and Head CSR, Hero Moto Corp. on BCP in times of Covid-19 for the enterprises.

We look forward to having you there.