Business Preparation

The one thing that I think is abundantly clear from the news I see and the people I speak to who own/run or are significant players in businesses, is that there is a tiering of businesses in terms of preparation.   Tier 1 = thinking and actively preparing

Thank you for your well-thought-out post.

I agree, the tiering is simple, you either "get-it" or "you don't get-it" there seems to be no middle ground. I recently worked with a firm that the CFO refused to do ANY corporate prepping. His philosophy is that if it hits, they are out of business anyways, so why waste the money.

This is a prevelent attitude throughout the business community. It is butressed by the private sectors "I will believe it when someone in the US dies from it"  attitude. Unfortunatly then it will be too late.

I am addressing a Bank CEO group next week. Financial institutions are literally the most at risk. The Fed has declared banks and credit unions to be part of the critical infrastructure. as such, they will not have the luxury of declaring a corporate holiday an closing down for the duration. That means that an alternative operating procedure will have to be developed. Lobby business will be curtailed, ATM and drive-up will be the ONLY alternative. But, even with that, there needs to be a way to disinfect the instruments (deposit slips checks et.al.) so that the virus cannot be spread via contact with the paper. These procedure(s) will have to incorporate provisions for employee attrition, the potential (a very real one) for their facility to run out of hard currency. For there to be a "run" on their bank.

Many companies will not be able to face the onslaught and will simply close their doors.  There will be high orders of civil unrest as those that didn't bother to prepare will be calling on others to "share with the community" 

I could go on for quite a while (and I have been known to do so), but leave it be said that those corporate organizations that take the timenow to plan and prepare will be the ones that will be around when it is over. Those that don't, won't!

 

thank you trident/delta, something got messed up with my attempt to post and it went under guest.  i do not think your ideas are pithy, they are good ideas.  my guys wear gloves everyday, both for saving their beaten up hands and for sanitary reasons ( you would not imagine what some people do in their cars ) . as for the masks, i do have some for my family, guess its time to get more for guys.  let me ask this, how do you disinfect cash ?  and i will say i am more heartened today with the future, have been getting the bf burnout, feeling alone with my concerns ( crazy i know alone with 1000 people ).  but feeling like maybe, i can make it- thanks again.

One possibility for mom and pop retailers might be to add other essential goods and/or services that would be in high demand before, during, or after pandemic. This would be especially necessary if the business depended heavily on unnecessary items.

Take advantage of your existing location, business processes, skills of employees, wholesale purchasing, etc, to transition over to the new business model at a strategic time.

 

In a funny twist, though, I am currently shutting down a side business I have that retails emergency preparedness items.  There are way too many people who know where I live, and what levels of certain items I am likely to have on-hand at any given time. In other words, security could become a new issue for you, if you were to go that route.

There is practical information on pandemic prep for organization at www.missiontech.org. They are focusing on a process model rather than a check list. Scroll down the home page and check out the presentation on bus. prep on the resource page.

Cany anyone point me to a presentation for staff, giving good background and general info?  I'd be very grateful as it sould save me a fair bit of work.

Preparing Your Organization for a Pandemic, Part 1
From the Missiontech.org h5n1 NewsLetter

9/11, Earthquakes, Fires, Floods and Katrina; we live in an uncertain world. Some disasters we can prevent; some we can mitigate and others we must endure; none we can ignore. Risk management can be reactive or proactive. When a fire breaks out, use the fire extinguisher, of course there has to be a working fire extinguisher within reach.

History tells that many times we have been scourged by widespread infectious diseases, some have been pushed back by Health Practices and Medical Technologies, yet even then we see periodic outbreaks on such a scale to be called Pandemics. There is one particular class of virus that we have little control over; the Influenza Type A Virus. Every year many strains of this virus circle the globe. Some variations cause what we term seasonal flu, harvesting a quarter million souls, world wide. Some variations pass almost unnoticed. Every once in a while a variety emerges that is a monster, decimating the human race, as it did in 1918. We are now faced with a strain of Avian Influenza, h5n1 that has all the hallmarks of making a significant impact on human history. The straight truth is that we are no better prepared than we were in 1918, and a whole lot more vulnerable. The best we can do is prepare for the worst and hope for the best. We have nowhere to run!


Impact on the Business Community

"All the other catastrophes we've had in the world in recent years at the very most put screen doors on our borders. This would seal shut a six-inch steel door,“ Michael Osterholm

"You're just going to have to be strong enough to keep your head down for a year,“

Richard Branson, Virgin Group

Chinese Officials have already stated that if h5n1 goes pandemic they will seal their borders.

Even a Pandemic of moderate intensity will bring the global business community to it’s knees … many business will never recover. It will not be business as usual. The disruption of global supply chains, loss of outsourced supplies, development processes and manufacturing and the collapse of export markets will be the downside of Globalization. Every Wal-Mart store will be stripped clean in a matter of weeks.

In a December letter to business leaders, the heads of three federal departments urged companies to develop specific plans for protecting employees and maintaining operations during a crisis. "Companies that provide critical infrastructure services, such as power and telecommunications, also have a special responsibility to plan for continued operation," stated the letter, which was signed by the secretaries of commerce, homeland security, and health and human services. "Having a contingency plan is essential."

One third of the American Workforce will be unable to work for months, another third or more will refuse to come to work, afraid of exposure. Transportation systems will be severely impacted by lack of drivers and quarantines. Just in time supply chains will collapse, markets will dry up.

In a recent survey byDeloitte Center for Health Solutions and The ERISA Industry Committee:

“Sixty-six percent of respondents said their company had not adequately planned to protect itself from a pandemic flu outbreak, while 14 percent said they had adequately planned and 20 percent were undecided.”

“Fifty-eight percent said they are not confident their company is prepared to manage a pandemic flu outbreak, while 18 percent said they are confident they are prepared and 24 percent were undecided.”

“Seventy-three percent said their company could use help understanding what it should do to plan for a pandemic flu outbreak, while 14 percent said they did not need help and 13 percent were undecided.”

“Thirty-nine percent believed there wasn’t much a company could do to prepare itself for a pandemic flu outbreak, while 41 percent disagreed with that statement and 20 percent were undecided.”

What Organizations are doing

Many companies, responding to an ever increasing risk to their business operations, are developing and putting into place strategies to protect operations, ensure workforce safety, arrange for alternate work sites, and mitigate disruptions in the supply & distribution chain. There is a disturbing trend I see developing, the over reliance on models based on a biodisaster. Biodisasters refer to local outbreaks of a pathogen due to accident or intentional release, such as anthrax. Biodisasters are local disruptions embedded in a stable global environment, Pandemic are global disruptions. The rules of the game are entirely different. Using the wrong play sheet will be a disaster in it’s self.

The key to Organizational Survival is Robustness and Flexibility

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable”
Dwight D Eisenhower

“No plan survives contact with the enemy” Moltke

Rapid Organizational Change, a New Strategy.

Traditionally organizational change is effected in the axiomatic framework of contemporary educational theories. Unfortunately the axioms rarely align with the neurolinguistic foundations of behavior.

The result of the incremental model is a compartmentalized collection of spoon sized bites, impossible to functionalize except in a highly artificial textual environment, a very inefficient approach to solving problems in a highly complex contextual world. Knowledge acquisition, integration and deployment are nonlinear process, quite unlike the linear incremental models embedded in current practices. A fortress mentality is a recipe for failure. Flexibility of thought and planning is crucial to survival.

Organizational processes, strategies and problem solving techniques that have evolved in a stable low risk environment are counterproductive in an unstable high risk environment. A bio-disaster on the global scale of a pandemic is an event without precedent in modern history. We have few guidelines or experience with a disruption of this magnitude. Plans, be they Business Continuity or Risk Mitigation at the best are rough maps, the essential component is “planning”, a continuous process. There is no template for survival, only processes to mitigate risk. Many organizations will crash and burn. Some will survive, heavily damaged and some will actually flourish. Those that survive will be characterized by their abilities to pre-adapt to projected risks and respond quickly to unpredictable change.

Part 2 will introduce A Dynamic Approach to Organizational Survival

Align

Analyze

Apply

Activate

New Zealand business continuity planning guide (74 pp)

I also have a Mom and Pop Store. We live out in the coutry and we allready feel the problems with Wholesalers deliveries just with the gas prices.

And guest i now how you feel, we are in the same shoe as you are, but we are not alone. thank goodness for this forum to help us. I read here every day, don't post very much, but lern alot. All these people are like a family, all willing to help.

thank you everybody

Don't Fear or Panic: an Economist's View of Pandemic Flu, report available at http://www.bmonesbittburns.com/economics/reports/20051011/dont_fear_fear.pdf