With the world having seen the creep of COVID-19, many clients were concerned about the impact on the contracts they have worked hard and invested in to win. Then, needing to respond in a beneficial way, keeping employees and subcontractors as safe as possible while still maintaining the contract. Contingency Planning during the COVID-19 Pandemic was vital for the survival of many businesses.
A downturn in the ability to service a contract saw a massive effect on most businesses, the reality was that many, if not most trades relied on people actually to service a contract, it can’t be completed remotely by A.I. You don’t fix an AC Unit or an Electrical Transformer in the office, via a bot, you needed boots on the ground! Apart from the practical aspects, it also became a business contingency and financial planning issue supply chain for parts and materials; keeping contracts and clients up and running was and still is an imperative; communication needs to be timely and on target.
But now that those issues have mainly subsided, are you left with no focus on the aspect of contingency planning for your business?
What you need to consider doing NOW:
- First things first, dust off your original Contingency Plan. If you don’t have one then now is a good time to carry out some contingency planning work, do it NOW
- Risk assess the exposure of employees and sub-contractors to risks, bring in further protective measures to safeguard your business and workforce, do it NOW
- If you have the capacity in your team set up a contingency team. Don’t imagine you are the only person who can plan and manage this, do that NOW
- Review and set aside some financial resources if you don’t have that facility now, or your current facility is maxed out. Get prepared, review it NOW
- Communicate! Most contracts run without the need to have deep conversations with the client daily. Now is the time to speak to the client, find out what they are doing, keep the dialogue going, what difficulties do they have, what is your role in supporting them, understand the issues and problems and respond appropriately. They’ll appreciate your interventions, do that NOW
- Bring your service team together, or communicate with and to them, listen to them. Contingencies come in all shapes and sizes, do that NOW
- Check availability of crucial spares, materials and service parts; do you have arrangements with suppliers to help you through with important contracts, do that NOW
- Can clients hold spares and crucial parts for you? Ask NOW
- Ask for extra help to manage your contracts, you’ll have a supply chain involving many different people, consider that NOW
- Do you need to carry out some renegotiating of your contract, or parts of it? Think about this: how can you best help your clients by delivering a more focused service? Think about that NOW
So, the above are some practical aspects around managing impacts on your business and on the servicing of contracts. Contingency planning during the COVID-19 pandemic is, as we have said, as vital now as it is then.
At BIZphit, we aim to keep you posted and supported as best as we can to deal with the unprecedented contingencies a place you could find yourself in at a time of any contingency. Find further information here.
The BIZphit Team…