Covid-19 pandemic has forced many organisations to critically re-evaluate the adequacy of their existing business continuity plan or if they have any? A business continuity plan is an important tool in underlining how organisations are to remain commercially operational under the most unusual situations.

The Covid -19 outbreak has forced organisations all in Kenya and beyond to face an unprecedented event, affecting all aspects of daily and working life, including travel, trade, tourism, food supplies, and financial markets. Even though no plan or guidelines can guarantee resumption of normal working operations many significant lessons emerge from the countries such Korea, Taiwan and China that faced the pandemic outbreak before the others, the most important of which is the need for preparedness.

One of the critical areas in business that is often overlooked is the continuity of business. In many strategic plans of organisations be it small medium enterprise to blue chip companies the value of a business continuity management plan are lacking in many of these organisations.

For example during the SARS outbreak in Singapore in 2003, majority of the firms did not have any forms of business continuity plan or practices such as working offsite, compliance planning especially if you are dealing with sensitive data or technology enabled staff to work offsite.

It is through such unusual circumstances that illustrate the value of business continuity planning, which essentially involves proactive strategies, services, and technologies that enable firms to cope with disasters, ensuring at the same time the continued running of the business, identifying business interruption risks, defining strategic and tactical moves and preparing to respond.

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