Steps for Implementation of A Contingency Plan for Logistics

By Contingency planning, we mean to control and mitigate the risks, aid the continuity in business and devise a comeback from the recovery of worst scenarios, if any.

A strong alternate course of action should be mapped for the company to control business deterioration. NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) has also devised a contingency plan for disaster recovery.

Any business is like a pendulum between success and failure, the pendulum rests on success if plan B is being outlined when having any business deal. Following are some steps that are devised for the execution of a contingency plan in logistics:

Recruitment of A Contingency Planning Team:

A good business starts with creating a contingency planning team that comprises one representative from every extreme higher to the lower department. These representatives will mark out the objectives of the contingency plan for their respective departments.

And then, the team will arrange possible threat assessments and their impact on business, which will aid in outlining the possibility to face any pandemic, endemic, or other threatening situations.

Devising an Official Policy:

There should be an official contingency policy statement for every event whether a disaster or a business deal. This will help in shaping the same mindset by being on the same line and having valid ideas that too instantly when faced with any crisis or hazardous situation. This will optimize the response to any situation.

Mark Out the Possible Resources:

For a successful business, one needs to identify their possible resources that is what they can reach and what they cannot gather if their obvious plan A fails.

This will make your assessment for the risks management easier and instant as you already know where you can access help during plan B and where you can’t reach out.

Don’t Rely on One Resource:

The COVID -19 Pandemic has developed a different approach for devising a contingency plan. Since many businesses have been halted because of Covid, several supply chains are severely affected by this pandemic.

So, having an alternative resource will aid in the continuity of a business if one supply chain is not working. This way, the business owner can depend on any other resources that they identified earlier to get themself safe from any last-hour anxiety and problems.

Foods can be imported from using reliable sources for better implementation of contingency plans for a food business company. Moreover, you need to ensure that the strategies you make are in accordance with the food policy regulations. Some countries have strict rules such as the UAE food import regulations are quite inflexible.

Management of Risks:

Business Impact Analysis (BIA) can identify the possible risks and how they will impact the current business situations. This will not only outline the current risks but also how the company can be affected in the future too by such risks.

Such risk assessments will help in devising a contingency plan that will first look at diversified risk management strategies and then will prioritize the ones that are favoring more in the success of a company, business, or chain.

Contingency Plan Testing:

By exercising the plan, its effectiveness can be determined. Several exercises can be conducted to measure the time required for the application of several plans and how instantly it can bring change in the loss by devising good recovering strategies.

By exercising the planned testing, the deficiencies and weaknesses in a plan are easily pointed out, which are then recovered by summoning the staff to be more prepared for the real disastrous situations, if faced.

Update your plan:

Don’t rely on a single contingency plan for decades. The change in time, changes the situation, the mindsets, the strategies, and the types of equipment. So a new time requires a new or an updated contingency plan.

The revision of a plan is necessary as the software and the systems change with time.

Brainstorm not Possible Scenarios:

At one point it may seem that certain scenarios won’t likely occur but that doesn’t mean it never will. One should always get oneself prepared for every possibility. The contingency plan is just like an insurance company that gives you a plan for every worst situation which has not likely to be occurring any time sooner.

These few steps may aid in the development of a better contingency plan and for running a successful business, free from any disasters. But prepare yourself for the best and expect for the worst.