In today’s rapidly-changing business landscape, an organization’s ability to be resilient—including the ability to adapt quickly while maintaining uninterrupted operations and safeguarding people, assets and innovation—will be a key factor in determining its success for years to come. As a result, business resiliency planning is currently top of mind for many executives and IT leaders.
However, resilience is not simply about recovering from a crisis; it is also about embracing change. Therefore, effective business resiliency planning must include a strategy to preserve the three Ps—people, processes and procedures—that businesses need to survive and continue to grow. Read on below.
1 — People: Can Your Culture Handle Change?
People are the ultimate value to a business, and identifying, addressing and planning for the support of employees is now more important than ever. Ensuring that you are attuned to and respectful of the impacts of a business disruption on your employees should be your first task as a business.
What about the specific needs of your employees in light of events such as COVID-19? Does your plan leave room for this new dynamic?
For example, connectivity is the new currency. The quality of your users’ internet connection and their ability to connect to applications or infrastructure will dictate how efficiently and effectively they execute their functions. It will also dictate their experience with the Line of Business (LoB) applications required to operate. In addition, the requirements to keep the data in sync for the rest of the organization become more crucial than ever. Therefore, it’s important to make sure that employees and their connectivity to the infrastructure are a part of the business resiliency plans.
Customer priorities and communication preferences are changing, and the shift to remote working can pose a significant risk to the IT infrastructure. Employees need to be trained on what to do (and how to do it) if an adverse event causes business disruption.
2 — Processes: Are Your Workflows Preserved/Documented?
Many businesses think about disaster recovery planning rather than broader business resilience. However, when a major disruption such as a ransomware attack occurs, the workflows and processes that run your business need to be preserved as well as the critical IT infrastructure.
Examples of these workflows and processes may involve training – the ability to continuously educate and develop a workforce in changing conditions. Additionally, there are services processes that govern how the customer experience is handled, from the time an issue is presented until it is resolved.
If these processes and workflows are not documented, when a crisis hits, it turns into a fire drill. Alternatively, if this is handled seamlessly, the customer sees a high level of consistency and the company sees a high level of efficiency.
3 — Procedures
Procedures are the “how to” for executing on processes. Business resilience should therefore include a plan to preserve these important implementation functions.
For example, it used to be fairly common for a business to have hard copy control books. That is simply not feasible today—but the information that resides in them still needs to be available and accessible. Ensuring that this function is being implemented is vital to creating a comprehensive business resilience plan.
Ultimately, resilient organizations are those that are fully equipped to successfully navigate change and succeed. 2020 has tested many businesses in an unprecedented manner. If you can take some of the lessons learned and proactively implement a strong resiliency approach now, you will be setting your business up for continued success in the years to come.
Interested in learning more about business resiliency planning? Download Vology’s new whitepaper that will help you create a plan that can strengthen your organization’s business resilience.
About Vology
Vology is a leading provider of managed IT, cloud, and security services as part of technology solutions that drive digital transformation and enable growth. As an end-to-end cloud solutions provider offering assessment, migration, and hosting services, along with its unique customer portal, OPUS, that enables seamless self-service provisioning, Vology helps mid-size enterprises reduce IT costs, improve customer service, and boost productivity.