Technology Driven Refinement of Business Continuity

Vinod Raju, Head IT, Expo Freight Private Limited

Vinod Raju, Head IT, Expo Freight Private Limited

Working without Information Technology is like trying to breathe without Oxygen! It’s just not possible anymore!

In February 2020, when it started dawning on us that the Covid 19 virus could result in a minor disruption in our day-to-day activities (including perhaps, the inability to work from the office premises), we knew it was time for the Business Continuity measures to kick in. One of the first things that had to be done was to ensure remote accessibility of the company’s systems & software applications. This meant laptops with network connectivity for those ‘critical users’ who normally use desktops; critical users being those who were essential in ensuring the continuity of the business operations during an emergency. Turns out that there were several such users across the country who worked on Desktops!

Laptop requirements were quickly identified, and vendors were contacted for renting out the laptops, as remote working or work from home (WFH) seemed to be a temporary phenomenon; renting rather than procurement seemed the better option. This decision was acted on swiftly and we assumed that we would be one of the 1st of the blocks to do so. However, we were not and lost the ‘initial mover’s advantage’. Therefore, the first challenge we faced was to procure laptops on rent across the country.

Within a couple of weeks this hurdle was crossed. Once the laptops were all setup up and available, the second challenge was to ensure good robust connectivity for our users from their homes. It should be noted here that several users returned to their hometowns which in many cases were in remote parts of the country. Initially the only connectivity that was available was mobile phone hotspots. Over a period as users settled down for the long haul, broad band connectivity replaced the hotspot. The mobile hotspot became a ‘backup’ for the broadband.

The third challenge for business continuity was accessing the enterprise applications such as emails, operational, HR applications. Fortunately, this was not a big challenge. As part of our digitisation journey all our applications were on the cloud adopting the SaaS model. Hence, this part of the business continuity plan was relatively easy. It must be noted here that due to the pandemic and its lockdown effects, cloud computing has gained enormous traction.

Challenge number four: Getting users to interact with each other from their homes. Traditionally, the forwarding industry and its personnel have been slow adopters of technology. Hence initiating and training users to interact with each other using collaborative tools was a task for the IT Support Staff across the country. Users who were used to personal interaction had to now get retrained using other mediums of communication. The adoption of this took the most amount of time.

Once the above four challenges were addressed, remote working / WFH became relatively hassle free, with users becoming, on occasions, even more productive than the pre-pandemic days!!

Observations on remote working / WFH

Remote working/WFH due to the pandemic, has thrown up some very interesting observations.

1. Reduction in paper usage.
A happy unexpected consequence of the lockdown has been a reduction in paper usage caused by reduction in printing. Since, during the lockdown, it wasn’t physically possible to sign documents, digital signature solutions (which have been around for a while now) became popular.
Users and managements realised that with the appropriate technologies it really isn’t necessary to print documents anymore, unless mandated by law. The usage of such digital signature solutions can go a long way in contributing to the environment sustainability initiatives and efforts of a company.

2. Increased incidents of Hardware Failure!
Incidents of hardware failure have increased during the lockdown. This could be attributed to fluctuations in the electricity supply in most parts of the country. In our experience apart from a very few metros, most other cities experience fluctuations in the electricity supplied. ‘Unclean’ supply of electricity results in damage to sensitive electronic equipment (such as laptops) unless a UPS or a stabiliser has been invested in. This unfortunately wasn’t the case as most WFH users did not foresee this as a long-term situation. Hence the pandemic has highlighted that the quality of the electricity that is supplied by the local authorities in our cities, towns and villages has definite scope for improvement.

3. Need for improvement in Network connectivity.
Although most of our users were able to connect to the internet and our software applications, the stability and performance of the connectivity left a lot to be desired. Network infrastructure is another area which must improve in the country.

4. Need for Desktops
One of the much learning from the pandemic has been need for desktops. Given the paucity of space in residences in some of our cities and towns, it makes more sense to procure laptops instead of desktop even though desktops cost less. In future emergencies at least one activity (renting of laptops) from the business continuity checklist, can be struck off.

5. Improved technology awareness and process compliance.
Due to the new working environment users were forced to adapt to new technologies such as the collaborative solutions mentioned above. Users have been forced to get a lot more process oriented. Like:
• Logging in issues into ticketing systems to ensure resolution of issues, as against just hopping across to the IT support staff and reporting issues verbally.
• Improved documentation for assigning, reporting, and reviewing activities undertaken, vis-à-vis verbal interaction as was the case in the pre-pandemic days.

What the future holds for the remote working/WFH concept

Once the lockdown was imposed and employees were well settled with their technology infrastructure to work from home, as mentioned above, productivity of employees seemed to improve! Everyone was very happy about this improved productivity and felt that this would be the new normal. Managements were happy that not only did productivity increase, office overheads too reduced.

However, a major point needs to be noted here is that due to the lockdown, everything was closed, and hence the distractions too were less, thereby resulting in increased productivity. The WFH is purely a temporary business continuity short term measure. As the Covid cases around the country reduced and the restrictions lifted, everything around has begun to open up. In such a scenario, distractions increase too. WFH will cease to be as productive as it has been during the lockdown and hence will not remain a very attractive proposition for management. I am sure this drop in productivity is already being experienced by many now.

At best, management will need to exercise the remote working / WFH option on a case-to-case basis. Therefore, in my opinion in the long run the new hybrid model of working will not be applicable to all employees but to those disciplined few who remain more effective and productive working remotely.

The pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns have been a great ‘use case’ for business continuity planning. The biggest benefit of the pandemic has been the refinement of the Business Continuity Plans of companies!