Apart from embracing digitalisation and diversifying offerings, enterprises have the business continuity planning process as an advantage. Small businesses can adopt this thinking and process to create benefits for their operations.
From an early point of time in the pandemic and the subsequent crisis, businesses separated into two categories, the prepared and the unprepared. It is fair to say, both groups got whacked by the crisis, but the prepared group has emerged as being more ready to get up and start moving again.
Another observation has been the size of the organisation. Many smaller businesses, especially in F&B and retail, were impacted negatively. Start-ups, and non-profits that relied on investor money or good intentions ended up disappointed as their funding supply decided to be more selective. 457 businesses in the retail trade sector closed by September 2020, about four months after the circuit breaker in Singapore.
These closures are largely due to cash flow and (lack of) resources. The lack of sales has contributed to this scenario with the Singapore Retailers Association noting that sales have plunged between 30 percent to 70 percent for some retailers since the onset of the pandemic.
Larger companies and enterprises have deeper pockets that helped them to diversify or experiment with new revenue streams. This has extended to many of them adopting digital platforms and tools as they follow their customers online. Due to pandemic guidelines, these customers have accelerated their adoption of digital tools to help with their daily lifestyles.
Another advantage for these larger companies lies in their adoption of processes that help with achieving consistency and predictability. This is seen in their practice and preparation of business continuity plans (BCM) and crisis management plans and guidelines. Smaller companies typically operating on short-term programmes tend to view these practices as ‘created for bigger companies’ or too resource excessive to implement for them.
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What does business continuity or crisis management planning do for the small business?
In a nutshell, planning and the consistent practice of the process can help small businesses becoming more efficient in their operations and resilient as an entity.
Both types of planning involve identifying weaknesses and threats to the organisation and creating plans to deal with these factors, scenarios or actions. It provides space for the organisation to think and plan before any of these scenarios happen.
This helps the organisation because these plans are crafted when there is no direct pressure and stress from dealing with the scenario as it happens.
Other advantages for the small business include the ability to limit disruption to operations since processes and responses have been pre-determined and the teams trained to react based on these steps.
It creates an opportunity for the business owner or management to consider alternatives prior to having to act upon them. As a strategy exercise, having alternative plans is an asset to the business. As part of a wider BCM or crisis plan, it provides options for the business to cycle through when responding to the scenario.
Having a BCM plan also creates stability for operations and also for the talent in the company. With perspective on the situation and the reasons for the steps taken, talent are less likely to panic or make short-term decisions for the organisation.
What are the common pillars of a BCM or crisis management plan?
There are several steps in creating a BCM and crisis management plan. The key steps are to do research and audit management to identify the key challenges, scenarios that pose a risk and understand the trade-offs and the opportunity costs associated with these scenarios.
With the universe of risk scenarios, the team should pick the key or main scenario the plan is meant for. They can look at which audiences and customers are impacted by the key scenario and an assumed development of the situation.
Thereafter, key messages set against a timeline can be created. These messages should be crafted to trigger when certain developments happen. For example, if a crisis moves from the customer service channel to a social media platform, what would the brand share on the platform to mitigate the situation.
Another example would be if a customer service site has to be closed due to regulations, what messages and which channels would the organisation use to inform and set expectations with customers about travelling to the site or looking to obtain services from the site.
The plan should also include a means to measure the reception of the messages and the channels that are working well to deliver these messages.
Finally, the plan should also include a series of levers, based on external triggers, to stand down from the execution of the plan, and to use different key messages to signal to key audiences and customers the passing of the negative scenario.
There are several key differences between a BCM and a crisis management plan. In order for their plan to be effective, organisations have to adapt and customer their steps and reactions to the specifics of their target audience and customers.
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