BSI recently conducted a survey among business leaders in North America to better understand the ongoing impact of COVID-19 on organizations and evaluate their business continuity efforts on the road to recovery. This survey is the second in the BSI COVID-19 Pulse Survey series, which is designed to help identify organizational pain points caused by the pandemic and provide support on the journey through the ‘next normal’.
Key findings include:
- BSI has identified four key phases of the pandemic response: survive, stabilize, rebuild, and resilience. Since the first survey in April 2020, organizations have made significant progress in adjusting to, and preparing for, the next normal, with 60 percent reporting that they are in the recovery or resilience phase; nearly 8 percent greater than in the first survey. The number reporting that they are in the survival phase dropped by half, from 10 percent to 5 percent.
- While employee safety and sales recovery remain chief concerns for business leaders, fears for the future, such as when a vaccine will be developed and the impacts of a potential second wave of COVID-19, as well as the overall health of the economy, are much more prevalent now than in April.
- In addition, organizations reported they’ve become much more accepting of the fact that remote working does not appear to be going away any time soon; nearly half (47 percent) expect at least 25 percent or more of their workforce to continue to work remotely after the pandemic subsides – nearly double what the April survey showed.
- However, due to remote working, 40 percent of respondents also cited they are experiencing increased information security issues from phishing emails and VPN overload.
- More than six months into the pandemic, more than half of all respondents are still experiencing issues in their supply chain at the manufacturing site and nearly 30 percent of respondents are looking to make long-term changes to their supply chain including how materials are sourced and transported, underscoring the fact that organizations continue to experience ongoing, unresolved supply chain woes.
More details (PDF).