Businesses will be judged on how they came out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Much of your success during the coronavirus crisis likely depends on two factors: your industry and your business continuity plan. Unfortunately, for those businesses in hard-hit industries like hospitality, tourism, and retail, even the most robust continuity plan may not be enough to keep you or your employees afloat. That’s a tragedy no one saw coming. Companies who are weathering this crisis well are leaning heavily on their Continuity of Operations Plan, or COOP. These plans provide guidance on implementing and managing business operations so services can be performed in an emergency event. At its core, a COOP examines the risks to your business caused by specific events – catastrophic damage to your headquarters, a data security breach, a meteorological disaster – and assesses how to maintain business operations if one of them should occur. The global spread of COVID-19 has given companies a sobering reminder they should now include a pandemic response in their COOP.  Here are six considerations to include in your business operations plan that can significantly improve your response to a similar catastrophe (we hope you never need to deploy it).

Deploying a fully operational remote workforce is a huge undertaking, even without the turbulent time crunch brought on by COVID-19. No matter the size of your company - from small businesses to enterprise organizations – these transitions are tough. You need to be fast, agile, and flexible to maintain peak performance and protect your employees’ livelihoods. “Moving forward, whether we like it or not, businesses will be judged on their resiliency and how they came out of this pandemic,” says Bob Capwell, Chief Knowledge Officer at EBI. EBI successfully deployed a fully operational 100% remote US workforce in just 5 days. In the second installment of our two-part series on deploying a remote workforce, EBI’s trusted leaders share a roadmap that should put you on the path to success, too.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how businesses operate, perhaps permanently. This is evidenced by the number of businesses, from small companies to enterprise organizations, who have had to transition to remote workforces. Deploying a fully operational remote workforce is a huge undertaking, even without the time crunch brought on by coronavirus. From equipment to employee training, your Information Technology department will be responsible for the bulk of the transition. EBI deployed a fully remote and 100% operational US based remote workforce in five days. This week, we present a two-part series about how to successfully manage a similar deployment. In part one, Brent Wettengel, Director of Information Technology at EBI, offers tips for a seamless technology transition.