Business Continuity and Working from home during Covid-19 spread
Business Continuity and Working from home during Covid-19 spread
Case Study
“In March 2000 a fire broke out for less than 10 minutes at the Royal
Philips Electronics plant, Mexico, damaging its supply of semiconductor chips. Nokia
Corporation and Ericsson LM relied on these chips to produce their cell phones;
together they received 40% of the plant's chip production. Both companies were
about to release new cell phone designs that required the chips. At Nokia, word
of the setback spread quickly up the chain of command. Nokia's team, which had
a crisis plan in place, sprang into action. With an aggressive, multipronged
strategy, Nokia avoided any cell phone production loss in three days. In
contrast, the low-level technician who received the information at Ericsson did
not notify his supervisors about the fire until early April and had to scramble
to locate new sources for the chips. This search delayed production and proved
a fatal blow to Ericsson's independent production of mobile phones.”
Harvard Business Publication Education, 7-Aug-2012.
Above case study was read almost 10 years back, including many similar
case studies in the past by myself but never had witnessed or experienced such a
situation previously during his career both in Sri Lanka or overseas. Today
(18-Mar-2020) I went through a similar situation in a company where they rent
IT equipment in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Scenario
The first Sri Lankan national to contract the coronavirus was identified
on 11-Mar-2020. Government of Sri Lanka declared special holidays from 16th
(Mon) -19th (Thu) of March to control the outbreak of Coronavirus and the very first holiday was announcement came on 14-Mar-2020. Few Sri Lankans
understood the seriousness of the situation started thinking of business continuity,
safeguarding employees, mitigating the risks etc. Based on the strategies
adopted in other parts of the world, many opted for “working from home” as
there were many rumours that the holidays might be extended further, as a
strategy to curtail the spread of the virus.
Acting faster than the fastest
By Saturday and Sunday, the handful of companies realised the gravity of
the issues since these companies had at least a decent Business Continuity Plans
as part of their strategies. They were the first to place orders or initiated
to source from the renting companies for Laptops in big numbers for their
employees to work from home since most of the employees had desktops in Colombo.
Majority of the private companies began to work on 17-Mar-2020 as the rest of
the holiday did not apply to the private sector, as usual, senior management immediately
sat down to discuss the next plans and by late afternoon they started enquiring
on the renting options. They were too late since by that time all laptops in
the market had been already reserved. The companies which had strong Business Continuity
plans or clear strategic plans had already placed orders for the laptops by
Saturday and Sunday via emails promising to raise the official Purchase Order
latest by the next working day.
Experience
Coming back to the above case study, today I was informed that there are requirements for more than 2000 laptops in the Colombo market but none of the renting companies
had stocks to supply the demand even at a higher price. More requests continue
to keep coming in for items which never rented before such as dongles in big
numbers.
Why did this happen?
Many companies never thought such a situation will come; they were too
much optimistic; was never willing to spend time and money on Business
Continuity Plans; little knowledge due
to the common belief that this related finances of the company only; and as
usual CFO made sure Business Continuity budgets were shot down etc.
Lessons Learnt
The senior management considerably needs to spend more time and money on
the Business Continuity Plans, and make it part of the annual strategic plans.
Also, include it as a KPI for departments/directorates, key professionals,
promote and support it all areas of the businesses. Maybe after spending time
and money the necessity will not come next year, during the next decade to
prove the case or to foolproof the system in place but it will be tested during
the most unexpected time of your organization or the country, regardless, it
needs to work efficiently and effectively in any conditions.
Experience
I was a part of the business continuity planning team and my direct line
manager was part of the main business continuity committee which was
responsible for stratic planning and key decisions made. Also, taking this
opportunity to thank all those who taught many new things in this unknown area of
Business Continuity world especially the colleague from Briton.
5 comments
A very good article. The author knows what he is speaking about. Hoping you could write more.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comments and really appreciate it.
Delete-RUPESH
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