When a pandemic occurs, the spread may be rapid, affecting many industries, economies and regions worldwide - directly and indirectly. This will leave little or no time to prepare contingency plans.

While false alarms and fear mongering have led to complacency among many, PARATUS Group urges public and private organizations to prepare now for the eventuality of a pandemic.

PARATUS Group's experiences through its involvement in the SARS outbreak has strengthened its understanding of what is required to plan for a potential pandemic outbreak to ensure business continuity.

Read: Inoculating business against pandemic takes planning

The PARATUS Group will work with your organization to perform the following key activities:

• Liaise with your public health department.
• Make your workforce aware of the avian flu threat and the steps your organization is taking to prepare for it.
• Assess your business continuity preparedness for this type of workforce outage scenario and try to improve it - few to no organization has planned for a 30% absenteeism rate, sustained over a period of weeks and months, not days.
• Assign someone in your business to track biological threats such as the avian flu. This person should regularly review business continuity plans and update them in response to new information.
• Establish or expand policies and tools that enable employees to work from home with broadband access, appropriate security and network access to applications. Plan for absenteeism rates of 25 to 30 percent.
• Expand online transaction and self-service options for customers and partners.
• Work with customers and partners to minimize any disruption by developing coordinated crisis response capabilities.
• Re-think your approach to just-in-time inventories. If transportation systems are down, it could greatly impact the delivery of an organization's raw materials.

Read: Communications and flexibility are the best medicine in a pandemic

Contact

PARATUS Group

Steve Armstrong, Principal

Telephone: (403) 236-0205 Ext: 2

Email: mailto:steve_armstrong@paratusgroup.ca