What You Need to Know About A Business Continuity Plan for a Pandemic

You will want to know how to prepare and recover your company from the impacts of a pandemic, such as COVID-19.

What is a Business Continuity Plan?

A business continuity plan (BCP) is a plan that is developed to protect your company from any major impacts or threats that might come your way, and to develop a strategy to recover, if you were impacted.

When you have a BCP, you want to not only consider the threats that could happen, but also ways that you can prevent severe damage to your day-to-day processes and loss of your assets.

BCP’s are designed to be your business’ life saver. When hit with something unexpected, you will be able to still perform your every day operations and only have a few minor setbacks, if any.

Why Do I Need a BCP?

Let’s look at the big picture. A pandemic is connected to a virus which impacts people. And if the virus impacts people, it impacts your consumers. This leads to consumers staying home, avoiding others, and wanting to take other precautions. What this means for you is that they will most likely not be paying their regular visit to your business, or may just stop going altogether. This will cause harm to your company.In March of 2020, the virus outbreak, known as COVID-19, had already spread to all over the world. According to CNBC, 60% of businesses have permanently closed their businesses due to the pandemic, which can be assumed that these businesses did not have a continuity plan. Actually, research found that 51% of businesses around the world did not have a BCP in place to combat the impacts of the virus. That is over half of all the companies in the world. Yes, that is A LOT. Now, they are either implementing a BCP or still without one. So if you don’t want to close your business, it would be best to have a BCP.

How Do I Make a Business Continuity Plan for a Pandemic?

Well, for a business continuity plan, in general, the first step is to identify any and all possible threats that could impact your business. This includes, but is not limited to, natural disasters, epidemics, and cyber-hacks.

For a pandemic specifically, you will want to consider prevention strategies and alternative methods for your operations. Below will be some examples of what could be impacted. There will be a solution to help prevent that area of business from being impacted and a solution to help recover from it, should it be impacted.

1. Employees: They are the vital asset and key to any business. What if they get the virus, or do not want to come in because of the virus?
   1. Prevention: Allow employees to take their sick time when they need it. This is to ensure the health of the other employees is not affected.
   2. Recovery: If your business is able to still operate via employees working from home, then do so. This means taking and making calls from home and offering virtual customer support.
2. Suppliers: You may be getting your supplies and materials from overseas or different parts of the U.S. but in a pandemic, borders and trade will most likely be shut down.
   1. Prevention: Build relationships with local vendors in your area. Always have a backup supply chain.
   2. Recovery: Continue to establish your relationships with local vendors. Not only are you still able to get what you need, but you are helping out another business owner. You may also get more support from consumers as more people are looking to buy local and support companies who support others.
3. Store Front: You still have rent and utilities to pay. A pandemic does not mean that you have to give up your store front.
   1. Prevention: Ensure your business is getting cleaned regularly and thoroughly.
   2. Recovery: Place social distancing measures to keep your employees and customers safe. This includes but is not limited to having markers that indicate 6 ft distance, hand hygiene supplies, and mask requirements.
4. Sales: There is no doubt that sales will be affected by a pandemic in one way or another. But, it does not have to impact as much as you think.
   1. Prevention: Build a website and create your online presence, so consumers know you are still there.
   2. Recovery: Offer an alternative to going into the store. Get set up to do curbside pickup or delivery. Believe it or not, but this does not only apply to food chains.

When you need to establish your online presence or need to revamp it, let Techna Digital help you. We design, nurture, and help grow your business with our services.

Thanks for reading and stay healthy!