By:
Wayne Wild
on Wednesday, June 03, 2009,
under
BCP
Is your company prepared for a pandemic?
Most companies have invested in insurance and provided for
offsite data backups, but these steps alone will not meet
customer expectations and provide adequate resources & revenues
to insure the survival of the company, following a major
disaster. That is the value of a business continuity
plan.
"The fact is over 40% of companies who experience a disaster
never reopen and over 25% of those that do, close within 2 years."
(U.S. Dept. of Labor Statistics)
A disaster is a sudden, unplanned calamitous event that creates
an inability within an organization to provide critical business
functions for a period of time. It also results in great
damage or loss. That could be a natural disaster like a tornado --
but it could also be a pandemic. Are you prepared for
H1N1?
Unlike other natural disasters, where the primary problems are
property- or hardware-related (systems are damaged), the primary
problems in a flu pandemic would be the lack of staffing and lack
of other resources that would result from absenteeism at suppliers
and service providers upon which your business relies.
Experts recommend that businesses plan for absenteeism as high as
50 percent during a two-week peak of the outbreak, with lower
levels (around 25 percent) during the weeks leading up to and
following the peak.
For example, the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918-1919 occurred in
three waves. The first wave occurred when mild influenza
erupted in late spring and summer of 1918. The second wave
mutated and occurred with an outbreak of severe influenza and
pneumonia, in the fall of 1918 and the final wave in the spring of
1919. It was not uncommon for schools, theaters, saloons,
pool halls and churches to be closed. As businesses and
government agencies were emptied, telephone service collapsed,
garbage went uncollected and the mail piled up. In America
alone, about 675,000 people in a population of 105 million would
die from the disease.
On June 11, 2009 the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a
phase 6 pandemic alert, their highest alert level. What does that
mean? It is time to update your BCP plan and take
steps to be prepared. This level of alert only
happens when the WHO has verified that human to human transmission
of an animal or human-animal influenza virus has occurred in
multiple regions throughout the world. Check the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) website for the latest information regarding
how you can protect your family and your business. Do it in
the next 60 days; don't wait.
If you need help, give us a call. StoneHenge offers a full
range of BCP services from creating a plan to auditing and updating
an existing plan.
Personal prevention steps include:
- Wash your hands frequently (viruses can survive up to 2-8 hours
on hard surfaces)
- Avoid sneezers/coughers (Don't breath infected air-borne
moisture droplets)
- Avoid touching potentially infected surfaces (like door knobs
and hand rails)
- Disinfect surfaces with a diluted bleach and water
solution
Business planning steps include:
- Plan for the impact of a pandemic on our business.
- Plan for the impact of a pandemic on your employees, vendors
and customers.
- Establish policies to implement during a pandemic.
- Communicate to and educate your employees.
- Coordinate with external organizations and help your
community.