Sharpening business continuity plans

It has been a bruising battle for almost three years, and many lessons can be learnt from how Singapore responded to the Covid-19 pandemic.

All these have now been documented in a wide-ranging White Paper on the nation's response to the crisis and areas which need to be looked at in preparation for the next pandemic when it does happen.

The White Paper correctly observed that everyone from every sector of Singapore rallied together as a nation to pull out of the crisis.

In the chapter entitled "Rallied Together as a Nation", the White Paper says, "The Trade Associations and Chambers of Commerce (TACs) also played a key role in supporting businesses and preserving jobs. Many TACs and business groups took it upon themselves to support their members."

The Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry provided support on two fronts, both locally and abroad.

At home, SICCI's SME Centre was kept on its toes, disseminating information about the various help schemes and grants its members can take advantage of to stay afloat as businesses faced the wrath of the crisis. 

On the overseas front, SICCI and its community partners rallied to raise almost one million dollars for the India Covid Fund, which was then handed over to the Indian High Commission and the Singapore Red Cross.

The Road Ahead

Life is almost back to normal in Singapore except for the instances where Singaporeans need to wear a mask when they visit specific locations, in the healthcare and community care settings.

For the business community, now is the time for the TACs to take stock and update business continuity plans (BCP) which are essential during a crisis.

Here are some things which businesses can do to strengthen their BCPs:

• Update your business continuity plans with the contact list of personnel who can be contacted and who oversee implementing the plans. Very often, the much-needed contact lists still need to be updated with the names of staff who are not with the organisation anymore. Occasionally, it would be ideal for conducting a tabletop exercise and testing out different scenarios and honing the responses of your business or chamber to unanticipated shocks.
• Refresh the equipment needed if "work from home" needs to be activated again. It's time to send those laptops for an upgrade.
• Send staff for refresher training on the skills they need for their daily work. The future skills funds remain untapped, and it's a good time for them to enrol in refresher and retraining courses to hone their skills in new areas of work that can be useful.
• For businesses which have yet to digitalise their operations, especially for those in the retail and food and beverage sectors, it is an opportune moment to update yourself with the Industry Transformation Map for the services sector, which the Ministry of Trade and Industry (Singapore) recently refreshed and announced during the Budget debate in Parliament and swung into action with enterprises' digitalisation programme.
• If you have yet to contact the SME Centre@SICCI, contact them to learn more about the various grants and incentives offered by Enterprise Singapore.  

As the government White Paper concludes, 

"This crisis of a generation showed us, and the world, what Singaporeans can do when faced with a severe existential test. It marks a certain maturity of Singapore as an economy, people, and nation. We can be proud of how far we have come. And we will learn from the experiences of the last three years to be better prepared for the next pandemic".