Ensuring Business Continuity during crisis situations

A modern and truly robust Business Continuity Plan must be built around digitization where work, processes, information, and commerce can all be shifted online, feels Virender Jeet, Senior Vice President - Technology, Newgen Software.

In crisis mode or prepared for anything?

The world today is interconnected to an unprecedented degree—with technology, data, and globalization bringing people together across time zones and geographies.

This connectivity does not, however, make us immune to the unexpected. We do not get a pass when it comes to a worldwide, or even local, crisis—be it economic recession, natural disaster, or even a global pandemic. Most of these can be predicted to a minimal degree.



Preparedness is the ultimate key!

British Prime Minister and novelist, Benjamin Disraeli, once wrote, “I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best,” and that is exactly the approach we must take—in life and in business. In the event of a crisis, enterprises must be prepared to continue business as usual. However, in a recent PwC study, 57% of executives felt that their Business Continuity Planning (BCP) was out of date, making their company vulnerable in the event of a crisis.

Going digital seems to be the best way for businesses to build and continuously update their BCP. It’s safe to say that digital is the new normal as it enables businesses to easily operate from a remote distributed environment whenever the need may arise without impacting the speed and quality of services.

Business in a virtual working environment

When circumstances require businesses to operate in a virtual environment, there are countless requirements they must fulfill to keep their operations running smoothly, at 100% productivity, and to scale. Businesses must:

• Shift online quickly and seamlessly

• Empower employees to work remotely, with complete access to a central repository of documents and information

• Enable teams to collaborate and communicate, regardless of their locations, devices, and/or channels of choice

• Allow for omnichannel, role-based accessibility on a user-friendly interface

• Use technology and bot automation for structured and template-based tasks, thereby reducing dependency on people

• Implement processes that can be easily reconfigured to function purely digitally

• Ensure security and compliance

Business continuity needs a timely adoption of digital

Businesses can achieve all of this by implementing a digital automation platform, especially with low code capabilities, thereby centralizing, digitizing, and automating all their processes with speed and priming their enterprise for any further changes, expected or unexpected.

A modern and truly robust business continuity plan must be built around digitization where work, processes, information, and commerce can all be shifted online. By investing into digital transformation platform, essentially, , as well as specific, configurable applications, businesses can keep solving for end-to-end customer journeys and set themselves up to weather any unforeseen circumstances in the future.

Real-world application: A US-based bank operating remotely

Take, for example, a US-based bank, which invested into Newgen’s platform-built solution to digitize their loan application, document storage, and checklist execution processes, among others. In light of the recent Covid-19 pandemic, executives at the bank were able to shift to working remotely and their business operations were able to continue without missing a beat.

Because the bank chose to invest in their BCP, built around digitization, their employees are now able to collaborate in real-time on loan applications and access information, including cash flows, appraisal reports, and reports from other agencies, from the centralized repository at any time and from anywhere. These are just a few examples from a long list of remote process workflows made possible by the bank’s proactive action in taking their business digital.



Digital is not a matter of choice!

For now, and for the future, businesses would be remiss not to outline a Business Continuity Plan centered around digitization—especially moving toward centralizing and automating business workflows on a unified digital automation platform. Moving forward, enterprises must capitalize on the stability digitization offers, especially in uncertain times—ensuring that businesses run, rain or shine, in sickness or in health, come what may.