Business Continuity for your Business

We are living in an unprecedented time. COVID19 represents difficulty and complexities for us all and that doesn’t even include those who are ill and our skilled health-care workers facing this in a more acute way.

Setting aside ensuring your family and loved ones are safely tucked away, as a business owner, this can be a daunting time. But ‘how’ daunting is how you look at it.

In one of my past lives, I had the opportunity to co-lead and build a pandemic response for a Fortune 500 company in Canada, which fed into the Continuity planning for the organization. That experience has given me the opportunity to look at this situation from a unique perspective.

First and foremost, I encourage every business (and person) to follow all the department of health and government guidelines, recommendations and directives in their area, at this time.

As a business owner, figuring out how to navigate this situation can be challenging to say the least, particularly if it’s your sole income that feeds your family and if you have employees.

The government of Canada has provided a number of resources for Business Owners (link below this article).

I know many of you are considering how to keep doing business at this time (while adhering to your local and federal health guidelines).

Thinking about business continuity is largely about what MUST happen in order for your business to survive.

1. What operations and processes must happen for your customers/clients to be serviced; and serviced in a way that complies with health guidelines?

   1. Consider how you attract customers

   2. Consider how potential customers become clients

   3. How do you deliver your service or provide your product

2. What interactions are traditionally done in person, and how can you replace those interactions with non-face-to-face options? (This is where you get creative and can brainstorm this, getting others to provide input can be helpful here too - your team, your customers, friends.)

   1. Could products be delivered (if the customer is local) or scheduled for pick-up at specific times?

   2. Could your service be delivered over a webinar or livesteam platform?

   3. Could you have small shifts of workers in your facility or rotate with some working from home one week or certain days and others working opposite in your facility?

   4. Could you only allow a small number of people into your retail space, do pick-up only, or schedule private appointments where people can have their own time and social distancing can be respected. Or can you have virtual facetime shopping and then the client picks up what they need.

3. Then, what tools, technology or resources do you need to create this new non-face-to-face process?

   1. Who doesn’t have reliable wifi on your team so they can work from home?

   2. What documentation or information do your people need or needs to be available to serve your clients at this time?

   3. How can your new process be communicated?

4. Explore new lines of business

   1. How can your business support what people need at this time? Needs have shifted so where can your business & expertise play a role (in service).

   2. Who is spending money right now and what are they spending it on?

I can hear you saying “Yes, but we’re not that nimble. To create new virtual ways of doing business, we can’t do that overnight”.

No, maybe not, but this isn’t an overnight situation.

Once you decide on a course of action, what can you accomplish a week from now, two weeks, 1 month from now?

Depending on your situation, this time could also represent an opportunity to plan for the future, improve your processes, have your people focus on their skill-building and projects. This will pass and today could be your opportunity to lay the foundation to emerge stronger than ever when we come through this.

I personally think we are at an important time where one of the positive things that will come from this experience is new creative ways for people to connect, share experiences and do business together. If you weren’t virtual before or able to make connections in new ways (ie. delivery, pick-up, scheduled appointments), this will propel you into new ways of thinking and doing things you may not have thought of or entertained before.

“Necessity is the mother of invention” — Plato

Focus on what you can control.

It’s very easy to get lost in the 24/7 news cycle at this time. Focus on what you need and what your clients need at this time.

Ariana

PS: I invite you to reach out if you want to speak more specifically about your business’ continuity planning and building a foundation for sustainability.

Government of Canada Resources for Canadian Businesses