Research commissioned by Citrix
finds that two-thirds of UK medium and large companies have plans
for employees to work from home if the bird flu
pandemic.
“Clear thinking about
how to keep the business running, rather than just getting it back
on its feet is the most significant trend our research has
identified,” advises Chris Mayers, principal security architect at
Citrix.
Yet despite these encouraging findings, a separate report from AMR
Research suggests companies’ plans wouldn’t stand up to a disaster
on the scale of a bird flu pandemic.
As well as home working and self-service initiatives, companies
need to make more extensive plans. They need to work out how they
would re-source supplies and goods and should also introduce
cross-training, so people can cover for each other.
Altogether, two thirds of the $1 bn-plus revenue companies
questioned don’t have the supply chain risk strategy in place to
cope with a pandemic.
“Ignoring the possibility of a pandemic or another low
probability, high impact event is not a strategy – building a risk
management framework is,” warns Tony Friscia, president and CEO of
AMR Research.
