Three Years Post Covid – What have we learned about our Readiness?

Outsourcing doesn’t just impact the bottom line. Learn the importance behind and how to properly leverage outsourcing to ensure you have an effective disaster recovery plan in place.

THE BIG QUESTIONS

Over the course of the past several years, we have witnessed unprecedented events.  Unimaginably, we are slowly emerging from a global shutdown the likes of which we have never seen before in history.  In addition, we are seemingly now bearing witness to the slow and steady threat and ultimate impact of some of the most monstrous storms, devastating wildfires, volcanic eruptions, and more. In what seems to be a never-ending stream of catastrophic natural disasters, pandemic shutdowns, and runaway inflation, how do we prepare and thrive? As business owners and entrepreneurs, we are compelled to prepare and learn from the past or be doomed to fall victim to the unknown impact.

So, to reiterate, what have we learned from the past three years?  What lessons are you incorporating in your business plan to insulate yourself against the next “unprecedented” event?  How are you going to use the lessons of history to build a thriving future? These questions can seem overwhelming. We live in the “do more with less” cost-conscience, economic inflation-stained business climate.  So where and how do we incorporate flexibility, scalability, planned redundancy, and nimbleness without crushing the budget? The answer may be more obvious and simpler than you think.

The first step is to look at your entire operation and evaluate your mission-critical operations, your core competency, and your highest cost centers.  Then identify partners you can collaborate with to build a bulletproof, shovel-ready, disaster recovery and business continuity plan.  Sweat equity is not free, but it is also not crippling and, one would argue, it is essential. After all, as business owners and leaders, we always invest our blood, sweat, and tears; so, if we are to do so, at least do it wisely.

History is wrought with examples of high-impact disasters, so it begs the question, why do so many companies spend so little time preparing for the unknown?  We have seen ice storms in the southeast cripple work for a week.  Storms in Florida knock out power and therefore critical operations for even longer.  Wildfires in California and Hawaii have caused unimaginable impacts and loss of life.  For those who were spared, it is incumbent upon us to assist those directly impacted with effective response plans. It may seem petty, but if businesses also fold during times of great disaster, that only compounds the negative impact on the community and on the lives of our neighbors.  Covid and the swath of recent disasters should give us all a good dose of humility and help shed light on just how small we are. No matter your race, creed, sexual orientation, or political position, the power of Mother Nature demonstrates the insignificance of our social differences. A storm can highlight the very worst in us, as indicated by looters, but also the purest resolve of the human spirit on display with our courageous first responders and giving hearts of our neighbors. As the events of the last few years were impacting so many of our friends, family, coworkers, and clients, they also highlighted another key factor. They made us all take stock of our readiness plan, and how we might navigate our responsibilities at home or work if we were faced with days, or weeks, of no power, water, lock downs, or shuttered office space. Before the next disaster strikes, ask yourself the following aforementioned questions:

» Do you have a disaster recovery plan? If so, has it been tested?

» Do you have a plan to handle increased growth or an unexpected and lengthy interruption in service?

» Are you scalable and nimble?

PARTNERING FOR PROTECTION

The good news is that when preparing for the worst-case scenario, you don’t need to go it alone—a trusted consultancy and outsourcing partner can help see you through any troubled waters. In the early days leading up to the global shutdown, all of us at Global Strategic, Inc. we’re reaching out to our contemporaries.  As leaders of industry, we were empathetically reaching out to see what they were seeing, how they were feeling, and what they were doing with their personal and professional lives. The incredible events that unfolded from there have left an indelible mark on our future.

Many of our clients/partners/friends were vulnerably honest about concerns. Together we worked through concerns and mapped out plans for assistance in covering their business needs in anticipation of a significant and imminent business disruption. Shared learning occurred and one such example led us to roll out a “work from home” monitoring software to enhance our ability to track time and productivity and manage a global remote workforce. The byproduct of the outreach program resulted in several organically grown business opportunities. Whether or not they were fully aware of it initially, the additional value that comes with outsourcing became palpable over those critical first few days and weeks of the shutdown.  Fortunately for us, we were focused on Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity long before the lockdown that hurt so many businesses.  Our plan was battle-tested and proven effective in the past, but to say we saw the extent of COVID-19 on the world would be a gross understatement.  Thankfully though, our careful planning led to the ability to double in size, maintain 100% continuity for our partners, and even build a new base of operations.  So thankfully, we were uniquely positioned to provide stability in the most unstable and uncertain time any of us can remember.

Any good outsourcing partner will be focused on nimbleness and have redundancy and bandwidth built into their operational readiness plans.  They will have a road map that puts all hands on deck and work extended hours during crises to meet the business demands of their partners. Ultimately, the “storms” of the past few years taught us that while we will work together to restore order, life can and will, go on. During times like this, I’m reminded of a few lines from “IF” by Rudyard Kipling and they are good words to live by.  “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs… yours is the earth and everything that’s in it…”

THE SILVER TINT IN THE CLOUDS OF DOUBT

Winston Churchill, as the world approached the end of WWII expressed this sentiment “Never let a serious crisis go to waste” and as we analyze our own generation’s recent global crisis it carries a great deal of weight. Churchill was talking about lessons learned from WWII and how not to repeat them, specifically in the formation of the United Nations. For us we have to take stock of our personal and business lives and how best to insulate against another global shutdown. We all see the value of leveraging partners when it comes to global security and peace. Leveraging strategic partners for our life and business can and should be no different. We should take advantage of the lessons learned from those impacted by these unprecedented disasters. Each of us has an opportunity to look at our business with greater clarity and ask an important question: What would you do if your office was wiped out or power to your operation was cut for weeks or months? If you haven’t thought about it or invested in a plan, then there is no time like the present. For many of us, we often feel we are far too busy handling our day-to-day workload to invest in a plan that may never come to fruition, but to not invest that time and effort is to risk everything.

Even as an offshore provider who serves as just one cog in the wheel of a full disaster recovery plan for our clients, we are constantly looking at our own plans and testing them. Our company took the initiative to adopt a process methodology with annual audits and certification reviews. For us, it was ISO 27001; for your business, another may be more suitable, SOC or Six Sigma, etc. But regardless of what you utilize, great lessons, practices, process improvements and security will follow.

TAKING THE FIRST STEPS

Don’t overanalyze or get overwhelmed.  Just start, take the first step and then another until the full plan reveals itself.  All too often we go through analysis paralysis and never commit.  A good place to start for any sized business would be to leverage an outside party or consulting company to assess your risk and identify critical gaps you need to close.  From an operations perspective, common areas that make sense for businesses small and large is to utilize third-party vendors for server storage and maintenance. For Global Strategic, utilizing a strategic IT partner allows us to incorporate an alternate site for our database into our disaster recovery plan. This approach to creating a strategic redundancy provides invaluable stability to companies of any size and certainly helps us formulate a plan that will help us serve our clients’ needs, no matter what transpires.  To some extent, our operations are industry-vertical and geographically agnostic.  We can maintain nearly 100% continuity of service from anywhere and at any time.  What’s more, this initiative saved money while also checking a critical disaster recovery box, because nothing is more expensive than losing your clients’ faith.

This process is called the discovery assessment, and it will provide you with great insight into areas that require attention within your business. Such an investment is worth its weight in gold for a business that wants to grow and do so prudently and sustainably.

The next step would be to review your entire operation, processes, insurance policies, and business continuity plan. If you don’t have one, get one right away; if you do have one, find out how often it is tested.

Lastly, consider leveraging partners that can be called upon during times of crisis, during short-term interruptions, or even during short-term bursts in volume. Questions we all need to ask:

» Do you have an offsite backup of all your data?

» Do you test your backup?

» Do you have a first-right-of-refusal lease option for your operations? “Shovel ready” alternate site plans.

» Do you have the ability to quickly scale up your operation in times of crisis or need?

» If you allow work-from-home options or are a smaller business, do you have security and backup procedures documented for those machines outside of your operation space?

When you start to peel back the layers, it can get overwhelming, which is why partners in business are so key. No one outsource vendor can deliver everything. But as the adage goes, you wouldn’t want to put all your eggs in one basket anyway. During the storms of life, our clients are able to meet a good deal of their daily workload as a result of properly leveraging an outsource/offshore partner. However, if they hadn’t already invested in cloud-based technologies or leveraged an offsite server backup, we would not have been nearly as helpful. A well-constructed plan must consider all aspects of your business demands.

If you take anything away from the tragedies that have befallen us all recently, take this—we all got a wake-up call, both personally and professionally. Many companies were able to fully witness their disaster recovery plan go into full effect, and while that scenario is scary, it is also validating to know one’s preparations were smart and effective. No one ever got to the top of the mountain without a sherpa.  Take the lessons of history and the network you have built and ask the tough questions. You will be surprised what you learn from your peers and how it can positively impact your business.