37① Know the basics.
Depending on the crisis,
Adame says, business dis-
ruptions require four types
of responses:
A) Emergency response
and safety. This is making
sure people and facilities are
safe.
B) Crisis manage-
ment and communica-
tions. Analyzing the situation
and informing staff, media,suppliers, and customers of
the crisis and the plan.
C) IT recovery. The tech
department protects corpo-
rate information, hardware,
and software.
D) Business continuity.
Keeping essential opera-
tions running.② Establish a war room—
three of them. Start on-site,
but have off-site and onlineoptions as backups.
They should be “cross-
functional,” Gaurav says,
meaning they’re places to
reach out for collaboration
on, say, sharing a factory
with another business.③ Update your HR
guidelines. “The policies
shouldn’t be specific to
any individual event,” says
Doris Dike, a health-care
attorney at Friedman &
Feiger LLP. They should
include remote work rulesand family medical leave
allowances.
Rachel Conn, a labor
and employment lawyer
with Nixon Peabody LLP,
suggests establishing
a communicable illness
policy. It should include
what sicknesses are
covered, employees’
obligation to report them,
sick leave rules, how the
employer will communicate
and keep workers informed
in an outbreak, and travel
restrictions.◼ STRATEGIES Bloomberg Businessweek March 9, 2020The International Organization for
Standardization’s guidelines include
No. 22301, which deals with
disturbances. It’s dense—“This
document specifies requirements to
implement, maintain, and improvea management system to protect
against, reduce the likelihood of the
occurrence of, prepare for, respond to,
and recover from disruptions.” Here’s
a tip: Just Google “ISO 22301 in plain
English.” �A.C.HAVE YOU READ ISO 22301?
THE EASY STUFF
THE MEDIUM-HARD STUFF
④ Identify critical
operations. A finance
department, says Adame,
might have to pay vendors
and employees, but its tax
and audit work could beput off. Then figure out your
critical needs, such as raw
materials or subcontractors,
and plan for how you would
maintain those supplies and
relationships.⑤ Assemble skeleton
staffs. “Prepare for
situations when critical
personnel are unable to
come into work,” says
Brion Callori, manager of
engineering and research
at insurance company
FM Global.⑥ Consider a digital sup-
ply network. Execs should
spend their time mak-
ing decisions, not calling
Asia to track down what’s
where. DSNs link busi-
nesses with suppliers,
customers, and logistics
companies.THE HARD STUFF
⑦ Work those connections
with companies you rely
on. Are you a priority—
or client No. 168?
Although there’s not much
companies can do about
pecking order during the
Covid-19 crisis, building
relationships in every facet
of production now will help
in a future disruption. “The
power behind the supply
chain is people,” says DavidCahn, director of global
marketing at Elemica Inc.,
a digital supply network.
For example, China is
requiring that factories
obtain health department
approval to reopen, and
if you know the local
inspector, getting a signoff
could be a smoother
process, says Rodney
Manzo, CEO and founder
of Anvyl Inc., another DSN.⑧ Defuse your supply
chain time bomb. Corporate
risk is defined by the
number of buffer days in
your inventory and your
short- and long-term
options for sourcing, says
Llamasoft’s Gaurav. Work
onbackups—and backups
to backups. Industries with
more regulatory oversight,
such as pharmaceuticals,
need even more buffering,
because switching facilities
requires time-consuming
inspections.⑨ Think creatively. Of
Manzo’s hundreds of
Chinese suppliers, 93%
are affected by Covid-
19, with an average
manufacturing delay of
17 days. If inventory is held
up, do you have alternative
markets to sell in? AJ Mak,
who runs Chain of Demand
Ltd., an artificial intelligence
supply chain company, says
a clothing retailer could sell
late-arriving summer wear
in Australia, New Zealand,
and Brazil.ILLUSTRATIONS BY PATRIK MOLLWING