The infamous “swine flu” now officially called “H1N1”, but regardless what it’s called by name, the outbreak has caused significant interruptions at levels from operation of business to even homeland security. There’s no way you can stay away from it. So the question is “am I ready if the outbreak turned into a pandemic?”
The global economy was badly hit by the economic tsunami since September last year. Every business is striving to restore their financial performance. Therefore, the loss of a business day can be even more devastating than in normal days. With the H1N1 spreading vigorously throughout the globe, the feeling of devastation is unpleasantly getting stronger and stronger.
All the bad things come these days and hurt your business severely, you might think and feeling desperate? And if you think it is bad having all these problems around, think again, the worst could ever happen to your business is that you are not prepared and reacting promptly to the interruptions while others are.
Although Mexico claimed that the outbreak of H1N1 is getting stable and expects to resume some public services in short time. However, many other countries such as Canada, US and some European countries like Spain and UK, the number of suspected and confirmed cases continue climbing up. Asian regions seem to be much safer to many people in terms of the number of cases. However, even places with experience of SARS like Hong Kong, still lost its shield to H1N1 with one confirmed case reported in 1st May meaning that Asian regions might not be as safe as what we think. So it’s a fact that “if things can happen, will happen”. Take Hong Kong for instance, the government had put significant efforts in protecting it from being attacked by H1N1 ever since the first case was reported by Mexico, but Hong Kong was still infected by H1N1. Now the question is, do we have practical plans to minimize the impacts if bad things really happen? There’re some questions that may clink your bell to think further for the continuity of your business if you’re not thinking now.
What if the outbreak of H1N1 turned into a pandemic situation?
What if 1/3 of your workforce was reduced due to the pandemic situation?
What if your key supplier got seriously affected by the H1N1 and stopped their service to you?
What if most of your trading partners closed their borders because of the H1N1?
An effective BCM (Business Continuity Management, BS 25999) in place would keep your business running under the ever-changing and unpredictable environments. BCM has long been viewed as a luxury that only big companies can afford or are needed, however, it should now be viewed as a core system to have for building sufficient resilience against any interruptions for every business regardless the size or nature of such.
A recent survey showed that only 52% of organizations have specific BCP (Business Continuity Plan) in place while only 38% of private companies have BCM comparing to 72% of publ i c s e c tor s in UK demonstrating low levels of take-up of BCM. The survey also showed that two most concerned risks to the organizations were Electronic Attack and Pandemic Influenza. Thus, people are aware of the risk of Pandemic Influenza, but do they know what to do if Pandemic Influenza happens?
The BCM (BS 25999) provides the framework to identify the critical activities of your company by using Business Impact Analysis (BIA). Any disruptions to the critical activities would severely impact on the business continuity, to address this issue, a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is prepared within the context of BCM which would help to minimize the impacts and to resume the critical activities to attain business continuity.
To set up and implement a BCM, the following elements must be included according to BS 25999 published by British Standards:
1. BCM Programme Management
2. Understanding the Organization
3. Determining BCM Strategy
4. Developing and Implementing a BCM Response
5. Exercising, Maintaining and Reviewing
6. Embedding BCM into the organization’s culture
Countries like UK has incorporated the principles of business continuity into the Civil Contingency Act to ensure that strategic emergency plans are in good place for continuity of operations such as London Resilience - Preparing for Emergencies. BCM surely would not guarantee 100% impact-free business environments nor full resumptions of the critical activities of your business, however, it can assure you that impacts to your business caused by disruptions will be minimized so that competitive edges will be gained in respective to your competitors that do not exercise BCM to keep your business running.
No one knows yet how exactly the outbreak of H1N1 will finally turn out to be. And the ultimate impacts to be caused by the H1N1 are not easily materialized or are tangible enough to put a dollar sign on at the moment, however, without the sense of continuity, it’s almost a sure bet that things will definitely go worse. And always remember “The likelihood of something very unlikely happening, is very likely”.
Figure 1. BCM Life Cycle
DO YOU KNOW?
There are two parts of BS 25999 (Business Continuity Management) published by British Standards
Part 1: BS 25999-1:2006 Code of Practice
Part II: BS 25999-2:2007 Specification
ONLY Part II can be certificated by certification bodies like BSI
For more information:
Tel: (852) 3149 3300
Email: hk@bsigroup.com
Website: http://www.bsigroup.hk
