"If the epidemic situation persists and there are no effective solutions coming soon, businesses are at risk of stopping production or even going bankrupt on a large scale."

DR. NGO CONG TRUONG

According to the World Bank, in 2000, China accounted for only 1.2% of global trade. By 2018, their market share is a third. In Asia, the market share has increased from 16% to 41% during this period.

The industries seriously affected by the epidemic can now be seen clearly such as tourism, real estate, construction, cuisine, fast-moving consumer goods, aviation, agriculture, supporting industries...

Manufacturing enterprises in Vietnam and globally were also severely affected. Sales of businesses in directly affected industries dropped sharply, even some businesses reduced sales to approximately zero. It can be said that the corona virus can be a "death blow" for small businesses. and both in Vietnam and all over the world.

"Save Yourself"

Enterprises need to have a proactive attitude to overcome difficulties, save themselves first, actively seek alternative markets, diversify output markets as well as input supply sources, and reduce dependence on the market. Chinese school.

In multinational companies in Vietnam and around the world, Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is one of the very familiar practices, and whenever there are difficulties similar to the crisis. caused by Covid-19, businesses will have a plan to respond immediately, in order to minimize the consequences and risks caused.

A BCP is a practical logistics plan developed and implemented to help businesses recover from a partial or complete disruption of operations after an unexpected disaster.

In today's business environment, businesses have to constantly face a lot of changes and risks that occur due to natural disasters, incidents caused by nature or man, from power outages, power, minor machine failures to larger disasters such as protests, fires, and disasters such as epidemics, earthquakes, etc.

All such events of all levels cause businesses to suffer a lot of damage in terms of economy, image, reputation as well as the risk of getting into legal disputes, thereby affecting their survival. of the enterprise. Society and the economy are becoming more and more uncertain, ambiguous, unpredictable and uncertain.

According to a study by Contingency Planning Research, when asked "How long will your company be at risk of collapse if you have to stop working", 70% of companies answered "in 72 hours" and 4 % said their company would disappear if it couldn't resume operations within the first hour.

In the same survey, 15% of businesses said that every hour of inactivity they would lose about $50,000 to $100,000 and 4% said that this figure could be over $5 million.

Through this Covid-19 pandemic, along with the lessons from the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it shows that, for disasters whose impact is extremely terrifying while the probability of occurrence is extremely small, It is still helpful to have a prepared response plan. In fact, many businesses are still able to survive the disaster despite having to endure a huge impact from it.

For such reasons, the development of a BCP business continuity plan is a key need in the operation of businesses. If built effectively, this plan will help companies minimize the consequences that the disaster brings to the company as well as to customers, the ability to return to operations soon. as possible, reassuring and responding to information requests of customers as well as partners.

Make a business continuity plan for the business

In the process of developing a BCP plan, one of the most important steps is the "risk analysis and assessment" phase. In this stage, from the assessment and consideration of all important assets and key processes of your business, the administrator must identify the risks and disasters that may happen to the business as well. as to the extent of its consequences.

They can then plan some major disaster scenarios in advance and have a response plan. It must be noted that, when proposing such response solutions, the cost of implementing them must be taken into account, so that the scale of the plan can be clearly determined in accordance with the needs and resources. of the company.

After the plan is fully developed, it must be disseminated and propagated to all employees to raise awareness of vigilance, and it is important to regularly perform maintenance, drills, and inspections. the performance of those backup solutions. Finally, periodically evaluate and control to detect new risks to edit and update the BCP plan of your business.

10 steps to create a business continuity plan

Step 1: Determine the purpose and scope of the BCP and the implementation team

Step 2: Identify priority activities and recovery time goals

Step 3: What do you need to recover critical operations?

Step 4: Risk assessment – ​​Capture the sequence of natural disaster phenomena

Step 5: Please don't forget about disaster protection and damage reduction

Step 6: Emergency response to natural disasters

Step 7: Business continuity (BC) strategies to recover operations soon

Step 8: Prepare financially

Step 9: Rehearse to ensure the right execution plan

Step 10: Evaluate results and improve

Entrepreneurs and businesses have the right awareness and mindset about the urgency of developing and maintaining a BCP business continuity plan, helping their businesses best respond to change and minimize all risks before the current Covid-19 pandemic, or events that may strike at any time in the future!

(*) The article expresses the opinion of the author - Dr. Ngo Cong Truong, founder and professional director of John&Partners Education and Consulting JSC