It's not too late to make a business continuity plan

As COVID-19 impacts people and businesses globally, organizations the world over are reviewing their business continuity plans (BCP). Business continuity depends on being able to communicate with all your stakeholders; employees and clients, partners and suppliers, and many others. Whether we’re in lockdown for weeks, months or more, it’s not too late to create or even fine tune your business continuity plan.

Putting a BCP in place

Irrespective of your industry sector, business continuity planning serves the same goal: to clearly state the processes and actions that you should follow in the event of a disruption. It identifies the risks that could drastically disturb day-to-day operations, and it says the temporary procedures that must be enacted to ensure the most important business operations remain functional.

Critical areas, such as employee welfare and IT functionality, must be considered. If disrupted, these not only impact the availability of your services but also put your productivity at risk. This is illustrated by looking at two crucial aspects of our business that we anticipate in our BCP: systems and people.

Look after your people

When a significant event, such as a global pandemic takes place, your employee’s ability to maintain services and solutions are tested. BCPs include contingency plans that put your people and their well-being first.

You need the right tools to help your people collaborate from a distance 

Look after your systems

With more employees working remotely, networks are under immense pressure. You need measures in place to eliminate weak points within your services and make them available to continue to deliver the highest level of support.

Remaining productive through better collaboration

Here at NTT Ltd. maintaining our business continuity means we’re ensuring it for our clients too. A senior client told me, ‘You are the backbone of our business, especially in times like these.’ And I couldn’t agree more. We’re more than a supplier to our clients; we’re their dependable partner during these unprecedented times, and we take our responsibilities very seriously.

Now, more than ever, collaboration tools are coming into their own. We see exponential growth across all industries with increasing numbers of businesses enabling work-from-home policies and deploying what they need to make it happen. Some companies are also looking to add additional solutions such as Cloud Voice, an alternative to their traditional telephone system.

Digital events offer certainty in uncertain times

The demand for Digital Events is soaring. Business travel is paused and industry events are called, however virtual events can be held entirely online. From internal and corporate communications to virtual conferences, they can solve many communications conundrums during uncertain times and offer certainty where it may otherwise not exist.

Uncertain times call for digital and virtual events

Plan, communicate and empower

Remote working is not easy for everyone, but now, it is a necessity. Taking the right measures will ensure your organization is prepared, and these three pointers may help you achieve success.

1. Plan: ensure your employees have the tools to work from home successfully and understand how to use them, safely and securely.
2. Over-communicate: share plans, policies and procedures, making sure employees understand what needs to happen and why.
3. Empower your team: trust remote workers to do their jobs and keep people connected to counteract isolation.

There is uncertainty ahead. But one thing is for sure. We’re here to help you create a more flexible future, one where people can remain your priority, and the way you communicate and collaborate is seamless and secure.

Assess how you can securely leverage our modern collaboration solutions for business continuity.