Coronavirus & Business Continuity Planning

Coronavirus Dashboard

While we keep an eye on the events around the Coronavirus outbreak, we have to start planning on how this outbreak might impact your business and personal life.

Maybe I am overreacting, but it does not hurt to plan and be prepared. Just find a spare moment and think it through for the following two areas that will be impacted:

  • Your Family
  • You Business/Employer

Corona Virus Dashboard for updates across the globe.

Some considerations for Families (this is not an exhaustive list):

  1. Ensure you are in contact with all your family members
  2. Avoid taking public transport, if you have to wear a mask (refer to your local pharmacy to get advice on which one to buy)
  3. Avoid going to public places such as malls, restaurants, etc.
  4. For grocery shopping, just one person goes and does it instead of the whole family.
  5. I guess it is time to get back into the habit of using hand sanitizers
  6. Educate young children on do’s and don’ts when outside
  7. Keep an extra vigilant eye on old and the very young.


Some considerations for businesses (this is not an exhaustive list):

  1. Inform your leadership on planning and determine at which point to share the information with the rest of the organization.
  2. Contact your insurance company to see if you have the necessary coverage
  3. Engage your lawyers to ensure you are not providing too much information or too little to ensure liability issues are covered.
  4. Update all your Employee contact details (phone numbers, addresses, emergency contact) and work location
  5. Keep track of employees who have travelled to china
  6. Identify critical business functions that your business relies on
  7. Ensure your critical business functions are documented
  8. Ensure you have an individual(s) who can conduct the critical business function just in case prime is unavailable
  9. Identify locations that are at a higher risk
  10. Understand at which point will it become necessary to shut down a particular location
  11. If you have employees in the field ensure you know where they are
  12. Provide employees with technology to ensure they can work remotely
  13. Identify a Crisis Team who will be responsible for information gathering, sending it to your leadership team to decide and then propagate it to the rest of the employees.
  14. The Crisis team will:
    1. Engage with health authorities
    2. Monitor news agencies to ensure they have the latest information at all times.
    3. Monitor hashtags on twitter, following are the trending hashtags #coronavirus #coronaoutbreak
  15. Information flow is key, ensure you identify intervals when to disseminate information and strike a balance between too much and too little information.
  16. If possible, set up a phone number, record a message, where employees can call to get the latest update
  17. Engage your leadership team and set up a command structure to ensure critical business decision-makers are available to provide necessary input.
  18. Decide on whom employees will contact if they have questions:
    1. Contact their immediate leader
    2. Call the toll-free number for updates

#coronavirus #coronaoutbreak #health #bcp #businessresiliency #businesscontinuity

For discussion join Slack Channel: https://join.slack.com/t/securityprivacyrisk/shared_invite/enQtOTA3MzMzMzU4NzU0LTBiZGVlMTQzMDFjMjFlYWRhNjYwYjNlMGIzZWY1OTQ1YmUwZjZmZDk2ZWVkM2IwNWU4MzI5NTNiYTIyNTNhZWM