Although no one could have predicted the Covid-19 pandemic, it illustrates the necessity of methodically updating and reviewing business continuation and crisis management plans for organizations across all industries. Going forward business owners and executive teams need to reimagine their planning to prepare for all types of threats including natural disasters, widespread power or technical outages, and other events that could conceivably threaten business operations on a large scale. In fact, the pandemic has provided organizations an opportunity to reinvigorate crisis management and business continuation planning.
As organizations begin to implement continuity risk management and business resumption plans, here’s some key concepts to consider:
- Cultivate a nimble culture that can respond quickly to an event with a business-as-usual approach.
- Review the organization’s response to the pandemic and integrate lessons learned after the fact in the company’s crisis management and business continuation plan.
- Determine other physical locations and co-locations for resources to ensure current service levels can be maintained.
- Evaluate the organization’s reliance on third-party providers, and determine a plan in case of an unexpected interruption of service or loss of these providers.
- Clearly define and communicate the process of managing crisis incidents, so that the incident will trigger an immediate response.
- Make sure that the organization and its workers can easily move to working remotely.
- Evaluate supply chain disruptions and identify alternatives for critical supply chain disruptions.
Business leaders need to assess the performance of their business continuity and resilience programs, take steps to ensure that the strategies are in place to respond quickly to the next event. Continuity risk assessments and crisis management plans should emphasize speed and flexibility so organizations are able to adapt quickly when necessary. It is also important that leadership and employees are given fact-based information and tested alternatives to enable real-time decision-making.
In addition to reinvigorating the organization’s crisis management and continuity plan, businesses should also make loss prevention a key part of their strategic planning. Although not all risks are insurable, it’s wise to conduct a risk management assessment too.
Risks are an integral part of the business world with organizations of all sizes having to face a myriad of them in their daily operations. Risks include natural disasters, security, compliance, governance, legal, and financial. It would be impossible to avoid all risks entirely, but effective risk assessment can help identify, measure, predict and manage them appropriately.
Healy Group advisors understand the biggest risks you face are often not insurance-related. Our commitment extends beyond obtaining business insurance coverage. Our goal is to minimize all kinds of risk exposures to safeguard your assets and reputation. Healy Enterprise Risk Management focuses on the biggest challenges that affect companies in specific industries.
Ready to learn more about a risk management assessment for your company? Let’s talk.
About the Author
John Kersey joined Healy Group in 2003 and has 30 years of experience designing risk management programs for commercial clients. As a risk management advisor, John strives to build strong relationships with his clients and business partners to understand their needs better and provide the best risk management strategies for their unique situations.
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