Coronavirus….Is your business prepared?

Reading Time: 2 minutes

6 March 2020

Business Continuity Plans (BCP)

With the spread of the virus not showing any signs of slowing down and cases in the UK growing by the day, have you thought about how your business would cope?

All businesses should have a business continuity plan (BCP) in place, does yours?  Usually, these are put in place looking at worse case scenarios such as the building burning down (for example).  But this very real scenario of the coronavirus potentially putting you and your staff into isolation, how would you cope?

As a compliance business, it was only natural for us to have a BCP in place from the word go. When setting up the business our directors having worked within Financial Services for 20 years, wanted us to be as flexible as possible, this involves all of the staff having encrypted laptops and all of our data stored in the cloud.  This means that we can work from anywhere with a secure internet connection, resulting in no downtime.

But, if your staff are office-based, and use a server – what’s your plan to be able to keep your business up and running?  It’s easy for managers to dismiss this as they themselves usually have the ability to work from home, but what about your staff?

With all of the modern solutions now available to businesses, there shouldn’t be too many reasons for your business to effectively ‘shut down’ if you and your staff are required to isolate.

Moving to a cloud-based solution isn’t solely enough though.  You have to think about if your staff are using a home computer, who else has access to that computer?  Can you assure your clients that their data is safe?  Encryption protection is key.

If you’re an adviser who meets clients face to face, have you thought about what alternatives you can introduce instead?  In our experience, video calls (like facetime or skype) are great alternatives and most would be the most suitable option.   This ensures you can still have that ‘face to face’ interaction with your client.

This advice isn’t just for the financial services industry, it is for everyone.  If you’ve not already, we strongly urge you to put a business continuity plan together sooner rather than later.

Statistics on Coronavirus can be found here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

If you’re a regulated firm looking for assistance with your BCP, get in touch today by calling 0161 521 8641 or email info@b-compliant.co.uk