Swine Flu – Time to Review Business Continuity Plans

If you are reading this no doubt you are concerned about the possible Swine Flu pandemic we are facing as we fast approach the autumn months. Swine Flu has been cited as being more devastating to the economy than the recession, but does swine flu mean your business productivity needs to falter?

With the WHO declaring that the spread of influenza A (H1N1) now represents a global pandemic (phase 6), organisations and businesses are being urged to make plans to manage the consequences of high levels of absenteeism.

Even though symptoms are generally relatively mild at present, absenteeism is expected to be high and short-staffing inevitable due to illness. This may have a significant knock on effect and lead to disruption of transport networks, ICT systems and create a massive strain within the supply chain. Consideration should also be given to the impact of restricted travel.

If the government are right then we can expect to see up to 100,000 employees a day contracting Swine Flu, which will have massive ramifications on businesses.
 
Analyst firm Gartner advised businesses to place IT at the forefront of their business continuity plans as the virus spreads.

“It is important to have pandemic contingency plans that define what you would do if the workforce absenteeism rates exceeded 40% or you had to close your offices. As you develop and refresh those plans don't forget that mobile and wireless technology has a part to play," said Gartner

Organisations should ensure that remote working and collaboration tools are ready to scale to meet higher rates of absenteeism in the event of an outbreak of Swine flu.

Handling Swine flu from an IT perspective is about enabling people to continue to work together or collaborate with reduced levels of face-to-face interaction. It is imperative to have work-from-home capabilities ready for staff. Executives need to think about how they would do business if the level of face-to-face contact with customers and staff drops dramatically.

In Dataplex’s experience most organisations have remote access capabilities, but these have been implemented with a maximum number of users in mind, which we are commonly finding is not adequate for the predicted influx of users.  However, since the advent of Cloud Based/SaaS technologies (Google, Amazon, Microsoft, VMware, and Citrix) there could be a more cost effective solution for your business.

The provision of a technical solution is probably the final stage in your business continuity plans, with several other stages needing to be completed prior to this such as a business impact analysis, communication to the workforce, addendums to existing policies, critical system dependencies and indeed the technology options available (such as remote access and/or cloud) to ensure sustained business performance.

Want to read and download the Swine Flu Report, then click here.

Putting aside a possible pandemic, the implementation of a business continuity plan will cater for other variables out of your control, such as the unpredictable British weather.  Dataplex architected, implemented and orchestrated many remote access strategies during the great snow storm of 2009 to allow businesses to continue their activities through a disparate work force.  And with recent government mandates providing employees the ability to request flexible working practices you will have an architecture that delivers against most eventualities.

How can Dataplex support you through Swine Flu Business Continuity?

Dataplex has proven experience in the implementation of business continuity and disaster recovery environments, covering all areas of ICT. Our consultants are capable of working with you to develop a pandemic programme through to specific parts of your plan, such as:

Development of pandemic plans to mitigate risk and impact of swine flu on your business
Development of key policies such as HR and ICT for flexible working
Implementation of ICT architectures for secure remote access to allow your staff to work remotely and mitigate the spread of the virus
Staff training for being able to access your business from any location.

Luckily there is still time to tackle swine flu if we act now and ensure that any pandemic doesn’t impact business performance and profitability. Contact Charles Barratt to find out how we can help you.