The Noggin Blog

2020 was no doubt a year for the crisis record books. So, what can crisis leaders expect in the year ahead? Not Nostradamus-level prognostication, here, but the safe bet is on the acceleration of severe weather events. 

Remote work has taken off since the start of the pandemic, and so has the cyber threat. Already in March, online attacks had shot up six times their February levels. As we now know, that surge would only accelerate – to dire consequences for businesses already struggling to respond to COVID-19.

What can organisations do to respond to the crisis threat? These crisis planning practices will help. 

Just last month, there were five named storms in the Atlantic all at once – a rarity last seen in the early 1970s. Nor is the Atlantic the only hotspot for storm activity. The interim Royal Commission investigation into last season’s bushfires also forecasted increasingly “erratic” storms hitting Australia.

For crisis leaders battered by COVID-19 yet still in the path of surging storms, it’s not only time to dust off your severe weather preparedness plans but also to get acquainted with the Incident Command System (ICS).

Most businesses entered the coronavirus crisis with a false sense of confidence in how prepared they were to handle a major crisis. Sure, they might have learned better. But how long will those lessons stick? A good way to tell is by figuring out whether and how often your clients are exercising their crisis response plans and scenarios. 

We’ve said it before. Producing the assets that are relevant to the context of your organisation will only strengthen a business case for the business continuity planning resources needed to maintain acceptable levels of risk – once you’ve measured them.

But what would those resources look like? We argue, practical business continuity technology should be part of the mix. Why? Well, during moments of disruption, every minute matters. And manual processes are ill fitted to help you meet recovery time objectives (RTOs). Read on to find out why.

Ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements is critical to your client’s business. But crisis and business continuity planning – often mandated by law – shouldn’t be a box-ticking exercise. Unfortunately, too many of your clients fall into the trap. What risks do they face treating crisis preparedness as a compliance-first practice? 

First things first: regulatory mandates following crises are ubiquitous – that’s been the case far before the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. In the U.S., for instance, employers with more than ten workers must have written emergency action plans that specify what workers and others at the workplace should do in the event of an emergency.

With a surge of coronavirus cases around the world, new reports of workplace closures due to fear of exposure are emerging outside of coronavirus-epicenter, China, and outbreak hotspots like Hong Kong, South Korea, and Italy.

For those of us that had forgotten, the outbreak and spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) to multiple continents should remind us that the risk of a critical global health incident must be factored into crisis and business continuity planning – and not just for companies with exposed supply chains.

The risk of the novel coronavirus to global supply chains is significant, experts say. And it’s easy to see why. For one, there is no historical precedent for the potential impact of the coronavirus on increasingly complex, global supply chains.

As of mid-February, over 64,000 cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) have been reported, with wartime measures increasingly becoming the norm throughout mainland China. The reach of the coronavirus, however, is global. The World Health Organization (WHO) has already declared a public health emergency of international concern.