Business Continuity During Social Isolation

As countries around the world enforce social isolation during the Covid-19 Pandemic, business owners in Australia are looking at how their business will survive and are currently rushing to enact business continuity plans to allow staff to work from home so business can continue as usual.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends business owners develop contingency and business continuity plans to prepare for employees being required to work from home either due to local travel restrictions, illness or at-risk health conditions. According to their website, The WHO recommends employers promote teleworking or work-from-home arrangements.

Global Big Tech companies such as Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Hitachi, Apple, Amazon and others have all recently initiated mandatory work-from-home policies amid the spread of Covid-19.  But what about Australian SME business owners who have to continue to run their business while protecting staff and customers from this pandemic?

There are strong indications that businesses may shut down entirely and potentially permanently if they can’t quickly plan for their employees to work from home.  The challenge for some; how to enable employees to work from home, when data and applications are office based and working from home means there is no access to systems needed to keep the business running.

The $25,000 PAYG offset Stimulus Package announced by the Australian Prime Minister on March 12 is a start, but more will need to be done to support small businesses in Australia said Founder and CEO of the Australian Small Business Association, Anne Nalder. 

Nalder said that some business owners are concerned they will go bankrupt if they have to close down for a period of time and if their staff can’t work from home.

Australian Cloud Services IT company CT4 is an expert on remote working solutions with the company having been built on a remote first policy.  This ensures their customers have no interruption in service during challenging times, such as we’re seeing today, when Australia’s workforce is potentially facing wide-spread quarantine.

CT4’s General Manager Wayne Moore indicated that businesses looking for quick solutions should consider cloud based virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) to provide immediate access to staff who have any old computer and internet connection at home. He said the simple solution is to lift business applications and data to a secure, Australian based cloud platform which will allow staff to logon to desktop-based CRM’s, financial software and corporate applications from anywhere at any time, including whilst in home isolation. 

“It’s essential for businesses without current cloud or web-based applications to quickly move to take on services such as virtual desktops, back-up of applications, cloud hosting and secure data storage. An entire business can be set up within days to run operations remotely, without the health risk to employees and customers and the cost is very affordable”  he said.

In unpredictable times during a global upheaval; businesses who can ensure their employees can continue to service customers will come out the other side of this global health disaster relatively unscathed.