The important of communication contingency planning in the modern world

Meetings are core to the success of a business. Whether meeting clients, prospective customers, board members or staff, people meet every day and organisations build from the meeting upwards. Today, we operate in an international marketplace where organisations deal more and more on a global scale. Globalisation has changed who, where and why we do business, thus resulting in an increasing need to connect and communicate globally.

“A lack of communication can lead to costly mistakes or delays, loss of productivity and a drop in revenue, ultimately leading to possible failure.”
-John Stone

What, therefore, would happen if businesses could not communicate or meet? A lack of communication can lead to costly mistakes or delays, loss of productivity and a drop in revenue, ultimately leading to possible failure. If communication is so important, then why do businesses all too often fail to protect it?

The recent eruption of the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajokull, brought the realisation of these risks crashing down on the business world. For almost a week, European airspace was practically shut when thick plumes of volcanic ash spewed from the Icelandic volcano and tumbled across European skies, grounding almost all flights in Europe. The whole event opened up the business world's eyes to the fact that many of those companies affected by the travel disruptions did not have a contingency plan in place to deal with such an outcome. PGi, an industry leading provider of audio and web conferencing solutions, saw usage of its conferencing services shoot through the roof during the volcanic flight ban. John Stone, Executive Vice President EMEA, India and Canada at PGi describes how the business landscape dramatically changed during the ash cloud disruption and how PGi responded: "In a global business environment fraught with dynamic change, natural disasters, pandemics, civil unrest and strikes, planning for unforeseen events and developing a contingency plan must be considered a key element of strategic management. During the disruptions, our PGi customer care team provided clients with on-demand, instant access to meetings offering free web services to those who couldn't travel, enabling our clients to interact and communicate just like a traditional meeting and report business as usual."

 Stone stresses the importance of contingency planning, stating that "no matter how carefully a firm formulates, executes or evaluates its strategies, unforeseen events can make a planned strategy obsolete in no time. With an unstable economic environment and the ever increasing need to communicate globally, virtual meetings are a crucial part of risk management as business critical meetings cannot be cancelled without there being some impact to business productivity". He also highlights that not only is business continuity planning essential to maintaining efficiency and workflow but "added to increasing cost pressures and an onus on businesses to demonstrate corporate social responsibility, organisations need to also now look at more cost-effective, productive and environmentally friendly ways of communicating and doing business".

Stone concludes with some hard facts emphasising how the benefits of switching to virtual meetings are now difficult for modern day organisations to ignore. "By reducing travel and converting to virtual meetings, organisations can save dramatically on the cost of flights, accommodation, transfers, travel expenses and employee downtime whilst also reducing carbon emissions and by switching to a virtual meeting strategy one of our existing customers reported savings of 86%."

As the ash cloud disperses, the risk of travel disruption fades temporarily. What this incident has taught us is that future events cannot be predicted and the business world ultimately is at the mercy of an uncontrollable and unpredictable environment. The only way that an organisation can control and lessen the risk and impact to business is by contingency planning: creating alternative strategies that allow businesses to maintain 'business as usual' like so many that have already done so with PGi.

Biography

John Stone is the Executive Vice President of PGi EMEA, India and Canada. PGi is a leading global provider of conferencing collaboration solutions.