Business continuity and emergency response planning are essential risk management strategies for any organization, whether they are a large multi-national company, a small local business, or somewhere in between.
A business continuity strategy seeks to anticipate risks posed by a potential emergency or disaster and how those risks could impact business operations, and prescribes the procedures to follow to mitigate the effects of those risks. It also provides the mechanisms to implement and test the plan to ensure everything works and includes periodic reviews of the plan to identify where improvements can be made.
Creating a business continuity plan is fairly straightforward. But emergency preparedness planning, no matter how well executed, is only as good as the initial underlying assumptions, and it’s difficult to plan for the most extreme and unlikely events that may occur once in a lifetime.
The COVID-19 outbreak and the growing number of cases is undoubtedly one of those events.
Work from Home as the New Normal
Whether or not the long-term impact of the current healthcare crisis ends up completely redefining how we live, work and socialize remains to be seen, and there will be plenty of conjecture on the possibility that this is a watershed event, to be sure. The more certain reality today is that the crisis is going to have a significant impact on individuals and organizations for the foreseeable future.
Business continuity plans that are already in place most likely were designed for events that could disrupt operations for periods measured in days or perhaps weeks, but are unlikely to have been structured to address an event that could last for months and beyond. They also probably did not take into account the circumstance that the majority of the workforce would be forced to work remotely for a long period of time, including the employees of partners, suppliers, vendors, and more.
So how do organizations rapidly adapt to the demands posed by a workforce that suddenly finds themselves remote for an extended period of time, and how do they ensure they are protecting those employees, their critical systems, and their sensitive data?
BlackBerry Partnering to Secure Remote Workers
This is where trusted partners who have the demonstrated expertise can be indispensable partners in assuring that critical business operations function without unnecessary disruptions and an organizations’ workforce can effectively and securely continue to be viable contributors.
BlackBerry is offering 60-day licenses free of charge for a suite of remote productivity, security and communications tools to enable organizations to continue their operations as they take the necessary steps to respond to the crisis. The solutions offered include the following:
- BlackBerry AtHoc: Enables response teams to effectively manage incidents by providing visibility into the status of employees and assets and allows secure collaboration between internal resources and third-party services.
- BlackBerry Protect: AI-based endpoint security that prevents sophisticated threats against endpoints without human intervention, cloud connections, signatures, or heuristics.
- BlackBerry BBM Enterprise: Secure text, voice, video, group chat and conferencing on any device, including smartphones and desktops.
More information on obtaining product licenses for your company can be found here, or by emailing covid19help@blackberry.com
BlackBerry also published a whitepaper outlining Seven Strategies to Securely Enable Remote Workers, which provides vendor-agnostic advice to help organizations facilitate seamless workflows for remote staff. It also outlines steps IT and cybersecurity teams can take to implement strategies to support collaboration and productivity for remote employees critical to business operations.
BlackBerry. Intelligent Security. Everywhere.
BlackBerry’s legacy of innovation drives an intelligent security approach based on Zero Trust principles to keep pace with IT environments that evolve with each new user, device or application, and every advancing technology. This is a continuation of more than 35-years of providing secure-by-design solutions that afford organizations and their employees the convenience they expect from modern IT infrastructures without compromising on security.
BlackBerry is committed to supporting customers and the wider community throughout this crisis by providing access to secure mobility solutions to maintaining critical business operations, reliable communications, and providing a means to monitor employee wellness.
