Did anyone imagine that a virus can harm humans on a global scale? COVID-19 has been declared as a Pandemic and every country has triggered their safety guardrails. Some countries have stopped international tourism, while some others have declared National emergency, and few others are researching and testing for the cure and the vaccine. While all this is happening, every day we end up receiving tons of messages, videos, articles, posters, etc, etc… that talks about the unfriendly virus, the importance of social distancing, precautionary methods and interestingly some messages are on the lighter side as well. There was one message that I received on WhatsApp this morning wherein a girl is singing a song – “Corona… ooh naa…naaa.. “; this was hilarious – for a change – it just tries to lower our stress levels.
On one hand, the governments are taking appropriate actions; on the other hand; many organizations have activated their BCPs – Business Continuity Plan. BCPs are executed to ensure that the businesses continue to operate as well as takes care of their personnel and assets. These plans are built as part of the risk management strategy well in advance to address disastrous situations like earthquakes, fire, flood, or other unexpected scenarios like the recent Corona outbreak. The real essence of BCPs are getting tested now. Every business, whether it is IT or other retail / medical / telco / utility or businesses like Walmart or Target, all of them are considering ways on how to ensure that their customers stay safe and their operations run without hurdles. There are few organizations who don’t have a BCP and are now finding its relevance. The outbreak of COVID-19 was not predicted at this level but, this in fact is provoking organizations to think through this difficult time.
BCPs in IT – Every IT organization has activated measures with focus on employee safety while continuing to serve customers and keeping them updated about their new (interim) ways of working. HR & IT teams are taking all appropriate actions to guide employees to work remotely. This perhaps puts a lot of load on the proxy or say connecting servers like Citrix; since everyone needs to connect to the organization’s network through VPN. Also, there is a steep usage on using communication and collaboration tools like Teams, Skype, HipChat. So, even if employees are remote but they are virtually present – they are attending meetings, they are addressing customer calls, they are connecting with their teams – in fact this is enabling us on how to work in a distributed team and also tests the systems in action. Its a learning for all of us. Again, this is just for an interim but it is providing us inputs that will help us revisit our BCPs in case needed.
BCPs in Non-IT – I recently visited the Costco store and was impressed with the way they are addressing this crisis situation. They are ensuring that only limited customers enter the premises to ensure that they all maintain social distancing. And for this, they have designed a queue system in a way that customers take a trolley from them (the trolley handle is sanitized by them) and then enter the queue. There are store executives at the beginning and end of the queue who are guiding the customers. Such warehouses or retail stores know the fact that their customers will visit them and hence they need to find ways to keep their customers safe while they shop. They are also leveraging email communication to keep their customers updated about store timings, in-store items and also suggesting them to opt for online shopping at their websites. This in fact has boosted online shopping – in a way this helps organizations to test their applications for load and stress.
While we all aim in winning COVID-19; we also should look towards our BCPs – it is the right time to test and improvise it, innovative new ways of working, leverage IT platforms and last but not the least – keep oneself and our customers safe.
Do you agree??
Very well written