Responding to the Pandemic Wake-Up Call

The Need to Bolster Business Continuity Planning

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world as we know it and impacted every aspect of human life and interaction. Besides the severe health crisis, the pandemic has thrown the economy into an uncertainty and led to large-scale operational disruption.

As per IMF estimates, the global economy is expected to shrink by 3% in 2020 due to the sustained ramifications of the pandemic. The resulting situation, commonly referred to as the “new normal”, has ushered in an era of a major reshuling of priorities within the business landscape.

Considering the unprecedented hardships that enterprises have had to endure in the initial months of the pandemic, business sustainability and continuity have quite rightly become the prevailing focus, irrespective of sectors or geographies.

Constructive attempts have been made by governments and authorities to aid in the economic recovery and restore normalcy of business operations.

On 21st July 2020, the EU agreed on a EUR 750 billion temporary recovery instrument for 2021-2027 called “NextGenerationEU”. This is only one of several recovery eorts by the EU that have earmarked a total of EUR 2,364.3 billion to support the EU's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Such initiatives play a significant role in safeguarding businesses and the national economy at large from widespread disruption. For individual businesses, however, it is imperative that they deploy a set of measures to secure their present and future. And establishing a comprehensive business continuity plan (BCP) is the one of the foremost and important steps to achieving the desired resilience.