Business Continuity : ‘Focus on all Business ‘What-Ifs’ necessary for responding to crisis : Megha Asher

Business Continuity

Business continuity is business resiliency to us. And how we look upon it is as a coping mechanism, from any untimely or unforeseen situations that happen in the business industry or in the world, such as natural disasters, fires, disease outbreaks, cyberattacks and other external threats. Business continuity is making excellent plans and manage operations during hard times and making sure that the company doesn't suffer in times of crisis. Strong business continuity saves money, time and company reputation.

Given the current pandemic, it is hard to overlook the business continuity right now. Things changed for better or worse, we quite don't know yet. We had to sit down and dig deep into business continuity and see what other measures except the ones we had already done. It is very important to study all the necessary "what ifs" while running a business. You may not encounter all those situations but it's better safe than sorry. It is important to keep the business running immediately after the crisis also to cover losses. And being prepared for the worse does help you prepare better for the future. It helps you to expand the limits, provides an integrated platform, managing other disruptions and helps recognize other business continuity adversities in the future.

Measures adopted

First things first, in any business it is important to decide which functions are essential and then allocate the budget accordingly. Once the listing down of essential items is done, we laid out failure mechanisms in place. We studied all the possible functions in the business that could go downhill. We also analyze potential areas of weakness, beforehand and gather key information -- such as contact lists and technical diagrams of systems -- that can be useful outside of disaster situations.

Adoption of Technology for your business

Technologies now play an important part in modern businesses. As the millennial saying goes, "Modern problems require modern solutions." So does a business. It's crucial to be up to date with the technology to flourish exceptionally well. Technology flourishes business communication, efficiency, and innovations to protect assets. Technology also tends to make it easier to work for employees and thus keeps them engaged because of less workload and flexibility to perform via devices from anywhere. And lastly, technology also saves a lot of time and effort and thus money. So we leverage it majorly into our business by using it to monitor the production/manufacturing, the display of products, the tracking down of online and in-store orders, deliveries, payments, etc. All of these functions use various technologies and help us in the smooth functioning of our business.

Sustainability and Continuity

-Going forward, each business will have to adopt sustainable methods of operation. The larger impact of sustainability is that it helps in reducing carbon footprints but for the company, it does more than just that. Sustainability drives innovation, leads to cost-reduction, and employs better and less-harmful methods of operation. For the conscious customers of today who care for certain causes, it is necessary to tweak business processes in order to stay relevant with the customer. We must look at sustainability as a pathway to benefit the triple bottom line: people, planet and profit.