The latest Business Continuity Institute (BCI) report, Coronavirus – A Pandemic Response, indicates that many organizations will be forever changed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Only 24.8% of businesses expect to ‘go back to their old business model’, demonstrating the huge impact the coronavirus has had on businesses, and how organizations have had to adapt & change at rapid speed to ensure survival.
Many businesses have moved online, some have remodelled their supply chains, others have even started manufacturing & marketing completely new products – all examples of how organizations have had to be creative to ensure their existence post-pandemic. Even with all these adaptations, 63.4% of organizations are worried about their financial stability, and this in turn could have dramatic effects on the global economy for years to come.
However, with every crisis comes opportunity, and the report highlights some of the positives to emerge from COVID-19, including more homeworking opportunities, that business continuity & resilience will receive more attention at c-suite level, significant investment in improved technology resources, and communications processes will be overhauled.
BCI Head of Thought Leadership, Rachael Elliott, commented: “COVID-19 descended on us with very little warning at the beginning of 2020 and, although some professionals had guided their organizations through previous epidemics, the extent of the global disruption caused by the new pandemic is something which few organizations had prepared for. The findings of this report provide a current view of how different organizations have managed their response to the pandemic, as well as providing some early insight into how organizations may adapt post-pandemic. With under a quarter of organizations planning to return to their “old normal”, the pandemic has forced dramatic change that no expert would have predicted as recently as six months ago. With the report based on a survey with nearly 800 responses, the findings of this report are robust and provide a very true picture of the challenges and opportunities faced by organizations at this current time.”
Download report for free from the BCI website.
