The COVID-19 pandemic continues to harm small and mid-size businesses due to supply-chain interruptions, temporary closures, employee illnesses and other disruptions. Now a new tool developed through research at The Ohio State University will help those businesses navigate the pandemic and disruptions caused by other natural disasters.

The Business Resilience Calculator (BRC) is designed to help businesses minimize losses during uncertain times. The calculator was developed through a partnership between Ohio State and the University of Southern California through the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute (CIRI).

The BRC is a decision-support system that enables businesses to learn from the experiences of other businesses like theirs and to improve current capabilities and priorities. Users start by selecting the cause of the disruption and the biggest problems facing their business, whether that’s power outages or the inability of employees to report for work.

Leaders then select their top priorities for bouncing back, and compare their approach to those taken by similar businesses during actual previous disasters and the results they achieved. The tool enables users to identify the most cost-effective resilience tactics.

Currently, a version of the calculator is being offered for free to help provide relief to businesses affected by COVID-19.

The current free version of the calculator focuses on the cost-effectiveness of resilience tactics to help businesses identify cost-saving resilience opportunities. The full version of the tool, which is scheduled to be released in 2021, will include additional metrics and modules.

Read the full article at The Ohio State University.