The Abrupt end of Business Operations - Assignment Example

The Abrupt end of Business Operations Background Whiles undertaking day by day activities, there are several events that can take place and cause the abrupt end of business operations. In situations like this, business continuity planning process is needed to restore work activity (Elliot, Swartz and Herbane, 50). To achieve this, a holistic plan testing that takes place with the use of table top drills, component testing and full scale drills in safety, security and emergency management is needed. The essence of this project is therefore to develop a plan which has been deduced out of a context for which the development of a business continuity plan (BCP) may be necessary. This means that the project is to give a generalized overview of what should be considered in a BCP in the event of the selected context. The current context being deal with has to do with the restoration of business operations at a warehouse where a fire outbreak that occurred around the motor of a conveyor belt brought operations to a halt. The plan is prepared in a very comprehensive manner, where several aspects of business restoration modules have been considered. Particularly, strategies that will be needed to be in place in case of the absence of a disaster have been presented. There is also the identification of possible risks that the business process could bring about. What is more, the plan outlines how restoration process can take place in a much multilateral manner. After this, various forms of procedures to be captured in the plan, including emergency response, crisis management, and business recovery procedures are all taken care of. Finally, issues of personnel, tools, and insurance are also considered as part of the plan. All these are done in order to achieve a well comprehensive plan that can readily be implemented into a holistic BCP. Information on the Business and Specific Process The business in question is in the warehousing industry, where the need to restoring business operations has been necessitated as a result of a fire outbreak that took place around the motor of a conveyor belt used in carrying products from one point in the warehouse to the other, and from one point in the warehouse to loading and distribution vans. In the context of this plan, the company will be referred to as Company X for ethical reasons. Company X has been a market leader in the warehouse business, specializing in the logistics activities of pharmaceutical products. Due to a very advantageous location where Company X is situated, it serves a good number of international and multinational pharmaceutical companies. This makes the warehouse a very busy and involving place. There are a number of conditions that make the warehouse of Company X prone to fire outbreak, including the kinds of products stored there, and the shift nature in which fiction machines such as the motor of conveyor belts work. It was out of such situations that the unlikely event of fire occurred and halting business for almost 4 months now. The process involved in the plan is to restore business operations, noting that with a comprehensive plan, Company X can come back to its feet. Strategy to initiate the Business Continuity process in the absence of a disaster The initiation stage of the BCP is a very important point to put the minds of all who matter in a right frame to start off the action process. British Standards Institution noted that the absence of a disaster is one of such best times to initiate a BCP, knowing that people will be in their right senses, devoid of panic and fear to act with much prudence (84). In the current context, a strategy to initiate the BCP in the absence of a disaster is to employ the use of tabletop exercises that will be coordinated among key stakeholders within the organization. Such tabletop exercises will involve small groups of people, most preferably departmental heads of Company X who would confer on specific aspects of the entire BCP. For their level of expertise and authority within the company, it is expected that the tabletop exercise will be done with much focus on aspects of the BCP requiring management decision making processes to take place. Key examples of these aspects of the BCP are issues of crisis management procedures, acquisition of tools, and insurance considerations. The outcome of this strategy will focus on the production of an insightful and constructive dialogue framework that is based on current operational plans of the company. Risks associated with the Business Process There are several risks associated with various business processes, including safety, revenue, costs, legal, security breaches, and related exposure (Hallenbeck 53). In the context of Company X, two of such risks that are very imminent are safety and related exposure. Right from the kind of products stored in the warehouse to the nature of business process, there are several safety risks that the company faces, which are worth addressing. One of such potential safety risks is those that could involve loss of human lives and injuries. Through the daily activities of people within the premises of the company, where machine keep moving up and down and at various rates of speed, the possibility of humans suffering injuries and loss of life is high. There are also such safety related risks such as fire, explosions, and spill. These may result from either the machines used at the workplace or from the pharmaceutical products stored. Environmental damage could also pose a serious safety risk especially in times of bad weather conditions. Safety risks are always considered to be very serious types of risks that demand and require pragmatic steps in dealing with them. This is exemplified in the Failure Probability / Risk Criticality Matrix prepared below. Apart from safety risk, which has been identified to be very critical, the company also faces related exposure, which deals directly with the company’s business fortunes. This is because exposure risks look directly at how the company is viewed by revenue involving stakeholders including customers and shareholders (Hallenbeck 384). Consequently, loss of customers could occur as a form of related exposure risk for Company X due to the nature of its business when quality and the need to ensure safety is compromised. There would also be the loss of goodwill risk, which could cause the public to lose faith in the company’s reputation. In today’s competitive global business environment, brand image is a very important factor in doing business. Such loss of goodwill could therefore be highly consequential to the revenue portfolio of the company. Again, there could be loss of shareholder confidence as a form of related exposure risk. This is another form of risks that may directly affect the brand image of the company and make it lose important shareholders whose financial contributions serve as the capital base of the company. All the potential risks associated with the business process have been quantified in the matrix below. Fire Human loss or injury Spill Explosion Environmental damage Loss of customer Loss of goodwill Loss of shareholder confidence Multilateral Continuity Planning Considerations The BCP to be used in the eventual while is expected to be approached from a multilateral context, where the single process is expected to serve several purposes and meet the needs of a lot of stakeholders. This means that there are two major considerations for making the BCP multilateral. The first of this focuses on the purpose of the process. In the first instance, it is expected that the BCP will be a useful component of the company that can influence decision taking on risk and safety issues within the company at the pre-emergency stage, emergency stage, and post-emergency stage of risks and safety events. What this means is that before there are any emergencies, the BCP must be useful in serving as a preventive framework that outlines measures that ought to be put in place by the organization in avoiding risk. In the unlikely event that emergency situations happen, the BCP is still expected to be very useful in outlining exactly what needs to be done in averting the risk situations. Then again, after emergency situations have been contained, there should be provisions in the BCP that makes it possible to assess and evaluation the contingency processes that were put in place. In terms of multilateral nature of the BCP from a stakeholder perspective, considerations will be made in the plan to ensure that the implementation of the BCP does not benefit only one component or department of the company but all. In effect, considerations ought to be made to ensure that needs of all departments within Company X are duly captured. One of the considerations that have been made to achieve this is the need to include all departmental heads in the tabletop exercise that will take place, as well as all other consultative meetings about the planning process. It is expected that once these people are all present, they will be in a better position to expressing the needs of their departments as far as the conditions that ought to be put in place to get the warehouse back to operation is concerned. Whiles the operation has also began, these are people expected to have the most knowledgeable form of ideas as to how best the interests of their departments will be met. This way, the BCP will not become a one-sided framework that serves the needs of only a few people within the organization but all within the organization. Emergency Response Procedures As part of the plan, emergency response is expected to be a process rather than an event. What this means is that emergency response is expected to be something that will be part of the daily activities of the company, whereby it is run on a constant basis. Once emergency response is treated in this way, it has been noted to have so much efficiency and effectiveness (Business Continuity Institute 49). In order to make the emergency response a process, a procedure for emergency is provided. Through this procedure, it should be possible to know exactly what is expected to be done about emergency at every point in time within the company. One of the first expectations of the procedure is to have a risk assessment performed on periodic basis. Very specifically, undertaking risk assessment on fortnight basis is recommended. This will ensure that as constantly as possible, the company updates itself with available risks and the best ways that these can be dealt with. It is also expected that there will be written policies and emergency procedures made available to all workers and other people that use the premises. Such written policies and emergency procedures will serve as documented reminders that can easily be referred to in times of emergencies. Apart from giving thee to people, it is also important to make copies available at vantage points within the premises of the warehouse and company at large. Again, it is expected that there will much tangible emergency procedures taken, such as the provision and marking of emergency exit routes, emergency lights, and emergency assemble points. All these are expected to be fundamental ways of saving life and property in times of emergency (NFPA 230). Then again, supervision is to play very important role as part of the emergency response procedure. This means that supervisors must be assigned to ensure that there is the enforcement of emergency policies and rules made within the company. One major weakness that several companies have been identified to be involved in when it comes to emergency response is their refusal to take action towards the enforcement of the policies and regulations they have (Warfield 109). One other important procedure that must always be followed to the letter is the need to ensure that there are periodic emergency drills. Highly recommended is the need to carry out the emergency drills twice every year. This will ensure that the company is able to reflect on the past half of the year, whiles making plans to meet the challenges of the coming year. Then again, the need to have an inventory of substances that could endanger rescuers and firefighters in the event of an emergency must all be made known. Apart from the above, Crisis Management Procedures Like with emergency response, crisis management is also expected to be a process rather than an event. As a result, it is expected that there will be a procedure that defines what needs to be done at the pre-crisis management stage, crisis-management stage, and post-crisis management stage. Consequently, there are four major guidelines involved in the crisis management procedure that may be used in the case of Company X. The first of these is the need to have a crisis management team (CRT) in place within the organization. Among other things, members of the team are expected to be selected from all quarters, departments and levels of the organization. It is important to have members of the team scattered around every corner of the company because crisis come unannounced but once they come, there must be someone on spot to act as a coordinator to ensure that laid down procedures are followed. The second guideline focuses on the means by which crisis notifications may be made to all members within the organization. The importance of the crisis notification as part of the crisis management procedures is that as often as crisis situations arise, it indicates to members of the organization on the best actions they can take to avert risk. The most important thing to ensure about the notification is the need to make it very thorough. What this means is that it should be detailed in giving notification of workers about an impending or ongoing crisis (Son, Aziz and Feniosky 415). The crisis management procedure is also expected to take care of the use of local crisis team where crisis situations are found to be beyond the initial capabilities of the people within the organization. In most cases, the functions of the CMT become limited due to the extent of crisis that they have to deal with. In such a situation, extending a hand for support from available local crisis team is the most advised option to take. It is actually recommended that the use and involvement of the local crisis team must not be made a last resort but part of the preliminary rescue situation as the extent and severity of prevailing risks such as fire are never predictable (Warfield 109). For example, whiles the CMT may think that it is in a position to handle a fire outbreak because the extent of fire is only minimal, there would be spills and explosions resulting from the fire considered to be small, and leading to much serious situations. Last but not least, reinforcement of the activities of the CMT must be taken very seriously. There are a number of ways to do this including the need to equipping them with needed logistics and equipment they need to function very effectively. Periodic training should also be part of the reinforcement program for the CMT. Such training programs must aim at making the members aware of the most modern and new approaches to managing all forms of crisis that are likely to militate against the company. Business Recovery Procedures The business recovery procedure will be expected to be directed at the need to getting Company X back to its fit and commencing operations within the shortest possible time. The Cabinet Office note that in BCP, business recovery procedures are made either for short term, medium term, or long term recovery (321). In this instance, the business recovery procedure will focus on the need to ensuring that in the short time such as from a month, the company can come back on its feet and start operating. To achieve this, there are four major areas that the procedure will focus on. The first has to do with the issue of communication. In situations such as the one that Company X finds itself in, it is important to communicate to all stakeholders as quickly as possible and as frankly as possible, so as to ensure that stakeholders will be brought up to date with what is going on. It is through such communications that the company can give assurances to its stakeholders so as to restore any form of lost trust. It is also very important, as a second step to focus on damage control. Most often, related exposure risks that take business opportunities from the company happen because customers and shareholders have the wrong ideas about the organization (Lerche and Glaesser 464). Through a damage control program, it should be possible to put this situation to check. As the first two steps have been taken to guarantee the trust of stakeholders, particularly customers and shareholders, it will be important to ensure that the put contingency and pragmatic steps in place to begin operations immediately. For this situation, the most applicable strategy is to resort to outsourcing. This means that Company X must find a partner company that will immediately take supplies and orders from customers in the name of Company X. once this is done, customers can really be assured that Company X is still in business. This must however be done alongside another plan that tries to put the original premises in shape or procure a new place where business can commence immediately. Whiles using outsourcing, Company X will still be offered some level of organizational authority to ensure that its customers receive service that is rendered with the organizational culture of Company X. this is very important to do so that the differences in organizational culture between the outsourcer and Company will not cause companies to go away. The last requirement under the business recovery procedure is to ensure that the company goes to the market to get new customers to replace any old customers who may go away as a result of the situation faced. Teams necessary to develop, implement and maintain the plan For all the procedures and plans stated above to take place, it is important to rightly identify the team who would comprise the CMT and work together to develop, implement and maintain the plan. The membership will be directly based on the roles that need to be played within the team. Consequently, nine member team members are identified. The first of these has to do with the leader, who would also act as the crisis manager. It will be the leader who will chair all CMT meetings and lead decision making process. There will also be the crisis coordinator, how will convoy all information to the rank and file of the team. The coordinator will also act as an organizer of all meetings and other gatherings. Other members will include field representative, HR manager, company liaison officer, media coordinator, security advisor, logistics manager, and record keeper. Responsibilities for team members Position/Role Main Responsibility Crisis Manager Chair of meetings and leader of the group Crisis Coordinator Organiser of meetings and disseminator of information to all members. Field Representative Undertake field research including research and development that is focused on the identification of risk and ways of dealing with them HR Manager Ensure the welfare of all team managers Accommodate and solve all grievances presented by any members of the team Company Liaison Officer Will act as a mediator and middle man between other members of the company and the team. Send petitions and requests to and from the team. Media Coordinator Act as the public relations officer of the group Coordinate the efforts of the team to the media and be the official mouthpiece of the company who will be responsible for communication and damage control responsibilities Security Advisor Advise the team and by extension the company on all security issues. Logistics Manager Be responsible for keeping and regulating the usage of all safety and emergency related logistics within the company Record Keeper Keep records of emergency and other risks situations within the company Write meetings of all meetings Tools to develop and maintain the plan There will be both softcopy and hardcopy versions of the plan. This is needed because of the advantages and disadvantages that come with each. The hardcopy version will involve the printing of the plan and storing it with the logistics manager. There should also be hardcopy forms of the plan for all departmental heads. More importantly will be the use of softcopy, which will come in the form of a cloud network system that will be developed for the company. As the issue of information storage becomes a big issue in computer security today, it is important that such a system be created that will be responsible for storing the plan in a cloud server to be made available only to authorized people. In the real development of the plan, the will be the use of various software including the use of Windows Project Manager. Insurance considerations The issue of insurance is very important in the current premise. In such cases of fire that befell Company X, insurance always helps in ensuring that the company is able to come back to its feet as quickly as possible. With this noted, insurance will be taken very critically. In the first place, it will be important to ensure that all workers have insurance that cover such things as safety, life, and health. This will ensure that in the unlikely event of an emergency, such things funding for personal harm can be catered for. It will also be important to insure all heavy equipment, vehicles and tools used at the site. The whole company also needs insuring against such things as fire. Even though such insurance policies cannot prevent crisis, they help in mitigating financial plight in post-crisis situations (Berger, Cummins and Weiss 513). Plan testing methodology and ongoing frequency The plan testing methodology and ongoing frequency will be directly fused into the testing and verification component of the whole CBP. The testing will therefore be done with the use of such methods as component testing, where it will be tested and guaranteed that there is documentation for every work process for critical functions (Cabinet Office, 79). There will also be focus on the need to test to be sure that there is maintenance for the system used for critical functions. This is to be tested in line with the philosophy that we do not change a winning team. As far as the systems are functioning well, it is important to ensure that their potential of work and efficiency are maintained. Last but not least, it is very important to check to be sure that every work checklist that has been included in the plan is meaningful, achievable, and accurate. Organizational training and ongoing communication mechanisms regarding plan activity Training within the organization is important for several reasons. Particularly, it is important to ensure that workers have the skill and knowledge needed to handle very basic risk related events and situations that take place within the organization. Apart from the risk related events, it would be noted that where workers attend to their work with the professionalism required, chances that they will make mistakes that lead to disastrous outcomes is minimal. The training will therefore be put in place to ensure that there is competency development for all workers. On the communication mechanisms, it will be ensured that there is an information system in place that makes the transfer of information within the organization as rapid and accurate as possible. On the wings of technology, it should be possible to ensure that efficiency and effectiveness will be achieved with dissemination of information (Rainer and Casey 36). Conclusion and Recommendations From the outlook of the plan, it can be concluded that the aim of restoring business operations to the warehouse is a possibility. This possibility is however not going to come in ease, as the business continuity planning process is seen as a collective and continuous process that requires hard work and dedicated service to accomplish (British Standards Institution 83). Much of what should make up the inputs of hard work and dedicated service have been noted in the plan. It is expected that risk management will become a continuous part of the BCP so as to ensure that future occurrences do not catch up the management of the warehouse at the blind side of their eye. This is because risk management has been noted to be an important medium through which organizations can be kept up to date about chances of business threatening events taking place so that the right mitigation processes can be taken to meet them (Hallenbeck 56). What is more, the plan has emphasized the need for the restoration process to be seen as a shared responsibility among all stakeholders who have been identified. It is expected that these stakeholders will see themselves as team and as people whose efficiency is best field in a group rather than as individuals. Once this is ensured, the implementation of the various procedures including emergency response, crisis management, and business recovery procedures will be undertaken in a more committed and dedicated manner that ensures spirited growth and progress. Last but not least, this plan must not be seen as an end in itself but as a means to an end. This means that constant evaluation of the plan to ensure that the plan fits current contexts of the business must constantly take place. Reference Berger, Allen N.; Cummins, J. David and Weiss, Mary A. "The Coexistence of Multiple Distribution Systems for Financial Services: The Case of Property-Liability Insurance.". Journal of Business. 1997. 70.4: 515–46. British Standards Institution. Business continuity management-Part 1: Code of practice. London: Ultimate Press Limited. 2006. Print. Business Continuity Institute. Good Practice Guidelines: Global Edition. New York: BCI. 2013. Print. Cabinet Office. overview of the Act. 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Son, Jeongwook; Aziz, Zeeshan and Feniosky Peña-Mora. Structural Survey, 2007, 26.5. pp. 411–425. Print. Warfield, Corina. The Disaster Management Cycle, Texas: Global Development Research Center. 2012. Print. Read More