Introduction
In the contemporary environment, every business has to be prepared for the emergence of complications and challenges due to various processes happening in the world. The worldwide pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus proved that problems can arise at any time and it is vital to adapt to them as quickly as possible. For this reason, companies and organizations have to learn to implement the concept of business continuity management in order to respond to unexpected circumstances with minimal damages. The following paper will discuss the importance of the mentioned idea and include a few examples of how organizations survived COVID-19 its effective use.
The Importance of BCM
Business continuity management is essential for any company that wants to ensure that it will not suffer in case an emergency occurs. As mentioned by Faertes (2015), the essential role of continuity plans becomes more and more recognized in the modern business environment. Natural disasters, pandemics, terrorist attacks, cybercrime, and financial crises severely influence development and performance (Faertes, 2015). Since these issues can appear at any time, organizations have to be prepared for quick adaptations. Thus, this is when business continuity management comes into practice. By carefully observing and analyzing tendencies and creating recovery plans beforehand, business leaders can address different problems before they happen.
The Absence of BCM
While it is clear how business continuity management helps organizations, it is also crucial to understand what damages it can bring. In case of an emergency or a critical period, business operations are seriously disrupted which means that top management has to deal with a high level of uncertainty and pressure (Schätter et al., 2019). The company does not have enough understanding of what can be the consequences of their potential decisions and actions; therefore, it loses a significant amount of time and contributes to the deterioration of the situation (Schätter et al., 2019). Hence, business continuity plans should be developed by all businesses.
COVID-19 Examples of Success
There are many examples of organizations’ successful BCM implementation during the times of COVID-19. For instance, Amazon is one of the companies that we’re able to respond to changes quickly and effectively. The administration implemented different earlier developed strategies in order to support its employees since, during a crisis, leaders should do everything possible to encourage their team to move forward (Renjen, 2020). In addition, Apple is another brand that is successful in the current situation. Even though it will take a while for it to recover fully, the organization was able to prepare for the situation beforehand by establishing open communication and understanding of future challenges (Renjen, 2020). Therefore, business continuity management is about preparing the team and going through the problem confidently.
References
Faertes, D. (2015). Reliability of supply chains and business continuity management.Procedia Computer Science, 55, 1400-1409.
Renjen, P. (2020). The essence of resilient leadership: Business recovery from COVID-19. Deloitte. Web.
Schätter, F., Hansen, O., Wiens, M., & Schultmann, F. (2019). A decision support methodology for disaster-caused business continuity management.Decision Support Systems, 118, 10-20. Web.