* Douglas Coutinho
In times that continue it is necessary, where companies cannot stop, a scenario of pandemic appears, of a disease that requires isolation and confinement, what to do?
Well, first let's talk about the need for continuity plans.
I worked on the elaboration of more than 50 business continuity plans in Brazil and Latin America and I say with all certainty that, in the majority, they were only designed to be picking up dust on shelves, that is, as it is commonly said “it was done for English to see"; were designed simply to meet a requirement of suppliers, shareholders, standards, etc., but unfortunately they were not started with the central concern that would be not to stop in cases of crises or disasters, and worse, every time we put a pandemic scenario as crisis, we were a laughing stock, being always obliged to remove such scenarios from plans and documentation.
Even though they have been through a pandemic scenario with H1N1, few companies have learned their lesson.
In my career in business continuity to tell the truth, I saw only one company take this scenario seriously, it was a large multinational, which for reasons of confidentiality I cannot name but I can tell you what happened.
Just before H1N1 exploded, we developed the company's business continuity plan and suggested a risk scenario for epidemics, which was accepted and fully developed, result: here in Brazil it was not necessary to use it at that time, but in an emergency , the plan had to be adapted for its Mexico branch, which was severely affected by the H1N1 epidemic.
And right after the end of this epidemic, the same plan was readjusted for all branches in the world, and to my joy and satisfaction I learned that the company's business continuity plan has been kept up to date and is being used 100% worldwide, including in Brazil, in this Corona Virus pandemic scenario.
And now, in this scenario here in Brazil, we see the despair of several companies which are not prepared for home office or other measures which would allow the company to operate within an accepted percentage for business continuity, and following the current scenario we see the despair of several companies trying to think about what to do, as they do not have, for example, VOIP, or the capacity for number of simultaneous connections VPN, or which business model to adopt in the face of the pandemic.
I hope that this time Brazilian companies will learn that disasters can also occur here and not only with others, and as I usually say "Always consult a lawyer and an information security professional or company" in order to guarantee the continuity of your business.
* Douglas Coutinho is an Information Security and Business Continuity Consultant
