How To Defend Your Company From Covid-19

Nine steps to making your company disaster-proof-ish

- Arianne Cohen

The business world was caught off guard by Covid19. According to a report by Dun & Bradstreet, 94% of Fortune 1,000 companies are experiencing supply chain delays—not to mention workplace absences, lower productivity, travel cutbacks, and reduced trade and investment. “Many companies had plans for floods or earthquakes, but their backup factories were in another region of China,” says Razat Gaurav, chief executive officer of Llamasoft Inc., a supply chain software provider. “This should be a wake-up call for a lot of industries.”

Bloomberg Businessweek talked to a dozen crisis planning and supply chain experts about how to prepare for continued complications from the corona virus, as well as future disruptions. Tony Adame, an associate director at Aon Plc, says many executives are good at planning for short-term crises, such as an active shooter or power outage, and ignore long-term impacts. Follow this checklist to make sure you’re doing both.

THE EASY STUFF

1 Know the basics. Depending on the crisis, Adame says, business disruptions require four types of responses:

A) Emergency response and safety. This is making sure people and facilities are safe.

B) Crisis management and communications. Analyzing the situation and informing staff, media, suppliers, and customers of the crisis and the plan.

C) IT recovery. The tech department protects corporate information, hardware, and software.

D) Business continuity. Keeping essential operations running.