Firstly, don’t add a fourth ‘P’ for Panic, but do take the current outbreak and associated risks seriously. We are at the start of something that could impact us in many ways for an indeterminate period of time. A pandemic (we are not quite there just yet) falls under one of the four categories of ‘operational risk’.
This is NOT a drill or an exercise, nor does this completely align with typical Business Continuity (BC) exercises or thought processes. However, BC, Incident Response (IR) plans provide elements that will help along the way. Similar to an adverse event a pandemic will evolve in its own way and at its own speed, it is as much about how we prepare and respond that will aid our ability to reduce risks and in this instance potentially survive.
Paul Sexby our resident business continuity practitioner has put together a paper which will provide some guidance on the key topic that everyone is talking about. This paper does not aim to provide all the answers, it cannot, but it may promote thought and discussion points for your organisation to consider if you have not done so already.
Download the Guidance Paper Here