Importance Of Business Continuity In Modern Businesses

Remicle • Image and Text

Year 2020 definitely proved to be the most challenging year of the century for business owners in Malaysia. Even prior to the global pandemic of Covid-19, global economy has been seeing a downward trend with looming recession in the horizons. And when Covid-19 finally hit globally and Malaysia about February and in implementation of our Movement Control Order (MCO) on mid March, it was a hard slap to the face for any entrepreneur already having a hard time. 

Remicle having our roots based in Malaysia and being in the current tech and future tech space, we understand the local ecosystem very well. Local businesses in Malaysia adopt technology at a much slower pace as it was always considered as a luxury or something of lesser priorities especially those in the business to business (B2B) industries. As recent as 5 years ago in 2015, we can still see established and successful businesses in verticals like manufacturing, construction, engineering or even services with almost no online presence except with an outdated website. But that being said, many of these businesses are family run and a lot of them are starting to pass down ownership towards their offsprings or next in line and we can start seeing them taking baby steps to start adopting technology to optimize and ease day to day operations.

Remicle founded since 2012, specialised in the Cloud ERP and business solution space, we have seen great success since inception with a steady growth rate of installs yearly and 100% retention to date. As Remicle business focus on full end-to-end customized solutions for our clients, we typically work with larger enterprises. With Malaysian's local business unique requirements, most of the time these businesses require a tailored and localised solution and cannot use your standard "out of box solution" without them sacrificing efficiency or extra work hours trying to work around these said systems either with many double entry work or out of system paperwork. 

When Covid-19 hit Malaysia and MCO started

When Covid-19 finally hit Malaysia and Movement Control Order (MCO) was declared just few days prior to implementation, it was a time of panic and struggle for many businesses to figure out how to operate and work from home. However there was a silver lining for our clients as our client's operations were already on cloud. We actually have clients calling in and thanking us gratefully that their system was ready online prior to MCO. Although there were still panic and anxiety to find enough laptops or moving computers to their staff's home among others, business could still go on. Within the first few days, 80% of their business operations are already resumed. 

Why this matters?

Priorities in business especially in Asian countries traditionally put very heavy weight on margins and revenue. Sometimes to maintain a larger yearly profit, most businesses do not spend in items they deemed unnecessary. Technology was one of them, as long as the business could operate, it was good enough for them. Old technology such as fax machines are even still widely used here in Malaysia. 

However, Remicle has always stressed the importance Business Continuity (BC). We spent almost the last 10 years preaching and educating our prospects and even been giving talks in many entrepreneur events on the importance of business continuity. Sure, no one can predict the pandemic. But even prior to this, we realised many businesses especially those now in their 2nd or 3rd generation are walking on thin ice everyday by having all their business processes, data, information, trade secret and more either within the founder's brain or heavily reliant on pen and paper solutions. 

That being said, we hear businesses tell us stories on how sometimes years of data and documents get lost either through fire or flood. Or how sometimes founders, directors or employees of 20-30 years get sick and business operation is heavily affected as there was no proper business continuity in place. 

Remicle • Text and Image
Remicle • Text and Image

What is Business Continuity (BC)?

Businesses rarely have the luck to have advance notice whenever a disaster is ready to strike. Even having the luxury of having some lead time, many things will go wrong as it is often out of our control how things unfold during these disasters. 

This is where Business Continuity Planning (BCP) come to play. To give businesses the best shot to succeed or survive a disaster, you will need to have a plan. Often you hear large businesses even M&C running scenario drills, even common drills like fire escape especially after the 9/11 disaster. This is to prepare and have proper SOP in place in case of a disaster, what's more if it affects the lifelihood of your business. Sometimes all it takes is one disaster, and entire businesses can collapse. 

Business continuity ( BC ) refers mainly to maintaining business functions or quickly resuming them in an event of major disruption whether caused by fire, flood, malicious attacks by cybercriminals, deaths or in this case a global pandemic. A good and well thought out Business Continuity Plan outlines procedures and set instructions that the business must follow in face of such unprecendented disasters as it will cover all aspects of the business from business processes, assets, human resources, operations and many more. 

Difference between a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) & a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)

Despite popular beliefs, many businesses adopt a Disaster Recovery plan (DRP) and thinks it is the same as Business Continuity Plan (BCP) . This is not true. A DR plan sole focus is to restore IT infrastructure and certain operations after a crisis. It is merely one part of the puzzle of an entire complete Business Continuity Plan as a good BCP looks at the continuity of the entire organization.

Tips to Creating Your Business Continuity Plan (BCP)

1. Plan In Advance. Developing a plan in the midst of a crisis is a recipe for disaster. Have a well-documented and comprehensive plan to address both disaster recovery and business processes continuity. 

2. Access Your Risk. Identify early your critical business functions and processes and have a plan how to maintain a seamless transistion in face of a disaster.

3. Create A Strong Partner Ecosystem. Find and select vendors and business partners whose resources are readily available for rapid deployment to assist in recovery and cotinuity efforts. Having them within geographically reachable is also an added advantage for support realiability.

4. Cloud Based Services. Having critical business operations and applications readily available in the cloud is essential for the quickest restoration of your business operations.

5. Cloud Provider. Often left out, selecting the correct cloud provider is critical in your Business Continuity Planning. It is important to have a provider that is able to rapidly restore service, switch services to alternative sites and maintain the highest level of security of your business's all important data. 

6. Develop Telecommuting Solutions. Have your business operations applications and software readily available for remote access help improve recovery time and maintain employee communication channels and productivity in disaster planning. 

7. Train Your Employees. A business is only as good as its people. Give your employees the proper training and tools to do their jobs whether in office or remotely is necessary to support continuous operations. 

8. Review, test and refresh. Do reviews of your Business Continuity Planning and stress test it from time to time. The worst thing you want is to have a disaster hit and your Business Continuity Plans are outdated.

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How Remicle Fits in Your Business Continuity Planning?

End-to-End Solution. Remicle ERP extends more than a normal ERP. We specialised in a complete customized business solution that fulfill all facets of your business needs.

Crisis Proof. As Remicle is a Web-Based, True Cloud solution, we are accessible anywhere and on any device as long as your employees have internet access and a browser. This allows your business to resume operations in the quickest possible time. 

Cloud Reliability. Remicle hosts our client on Amazon Web Services (AWS), the largest and most extensive cloud ecosystem provider. AWS boast multiple cloud sites, billion dollars investment in security with one of the most flexibilities to suit any business needs. 

Realiable Partner. We treat all our clients as our partners. As ERP rollout is a long term relationship between us and our clients, we invest heavily in helping our clients grow and scale into the future. Our client's success is the core foundation of how Remicle perform as a company as well.

Unparalleled Support. Remicle has clients in over 8 countries today in different timezones and industries, this also means that our team are working 24 hours and 7 days shifts supporting all our clients to date. This allow us to respond quicker to our client's needs.

Plan Your Business Continuity with Remicle Today!

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