There is nothing like a global pandemic to test organisations’ business continuity plans, and when whole countries locked down almost overnight earlier this year, it exposed the gaps in their provisions – something I touched on in my last blog.
How well-equipped were staff to work from home, in reality? How easy was it for them to access the latest client and engagement/project/matter information, collaborate and maintain productivity, when whole teams were dispersed suddenly?
While some were quick to improvise, many professional services firms were caught on the hop. Not all staff had laptops; nor secure access to files stored at the office. Many had to resort to workarounds to pass files back and forth in order to progress client work. All the while, IT departments and information compliance teams have had the huge headache of how they might bring everything back together if and when ‘normal practice’ resumes.
As that process begins – as businesses continue to reopen, and managers map out a post-pandemic workplace (which supports social distancing, and caters for those team members with underlying health conditions/who may be shielding vulnerable people at home) – firms are looking with a new sense of purpose at where their business continuity provisions fell short and how to plug any gaps.
Speed matters
BUT this is not a time to map out ambitious IT projects with two-year timeframes. As the COVID lockdown highlighted, successful adaptation is about speed – and Repstor, harnessing the familiar MS 365 tools people already use every day, is perfectly geared up to facilitate this.
When Kari Vislosky, Canada’s VP of People Solutions at Baker Tilly, recently reflected on the rapid transition towards remote work during lockdown, she described it as an exercise in ‘getting the job done’ – in contrast to the usual process of assessing all the options from every angle. In the light of COVID, she notes, the firm will be reviewing its relationships with technology.
Baker Tilley is far from alone in this, something we’ll come onto in our next article – a reflection on the accelerated digital transformation and platform consolidation efforts the pandemic has inspired.