Business Impact Analysis for Coronavirus (COVID-19)

The current novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, which began in December 2019, presents a significant challenge for the entire world. To assess our business risk, we have undertaken a business-wide audit of actual and potential impacts and put in place various measure to mitigate these. We hope that the information contained in this page will help our clients, partners and wider community to understand how we plan to maintain our services at this time:

What immediate impact has the coronavirus had on our internal resources e.g. staffing levels, premises/facilities, infrastructure, transport, etc?

Oyster IMS as a business is not only relatively insulated from the consumer market but can also survive perfectly happily through a remote working model.

Staffing Levels – we have retained all existing staff and are confident that we will continue to be able to do so for the foreseeable future. We even have a new starter next week on the consulting side of our business. We have also put coverage plans in place to deal with the temporary unavailability of team members due to coronavirus.

Premises / Facilities – The Oyster IMS main office in London, The Loom, remains accessible but we have no staff working there. The building has 24 hour manned security and we have retained all key services (including a low-level cleaning service) to ensure the premises are accessed and monitored as well as being ready for when we return.

Infrastructure – Our operational infrastructure is completely cloud-based: all of our systems, including the Oyster IMS Support Desk, are hosted and all of our data is stored securely in the cloud. All systems and data are therefore accessible from any location including those services which require us to connect via our secure VPN.

Plant, Machinery and Transport – Not applicable.

What resilence measures have we implemented to ensure business continuity for the coming weeks / months?

Following the advisory on 16th March from the UK government, we implemented full home-working for all Oyster IMS members of staff. As it stands we do not see these actions having any impact on service provision as all planned activity can be continued remotely via conference calls and remote access to systems.

Our operational infrastructure is completely cloud-based: all of our systems, including the Oyster IMS Support Desk, are hosted and all of our data is stored securely in the cloud.
All systems and data are therefore accessible from any location including those services which require us to connect via our secure VPN.

We have confirmed, via questionnaire, that all staff at Oyster IMS, including back office and administration teams have a compliant office setup at their homes including a suitable working environment, keyboards and monitors.

We are confident that the above measures will ensure sufficient continuity of the service we provide to you for the foreseeable future.

What immediate impact has the coronavirus had on our access to external resources e.g. sub-contractors/sub-consultants, infrastructure, etc?

Oyster IMS uses very few of these external resources.

We have an outsourced marketing function which already operates remotely but we do not use sub-contractors for any of our operational work. All staff are employed by Oyster IMS.

What immediate impact has the coronavirus had on our ability to provide services to our clients?

As stated above, we are confident that the measures we have taken will ensure sufficient continuity of the service we provide for the foreseeable future.
The only aspect that may be affected are those consultancy, professional services, support or training days that require an on-site presence at clients’ offices. We will endeavour to ensure that any situation of this type is managed appropriately and in line with government advice.

What business continuity planning have we conducted? And what supply chain investigations have been carried out to ensure continued delivery?

Oyster IMS has carried out a supply-chain analysis and received statements from all key suppliers as we seek to ensure continued delivery.

We have reviewed the information provided by these suppliers and, in the current situation, we are satisfied with what we are being told. We can also confirm that there has been no service interruption to date. We will, however, continue to monitor the situation closely.

What impact do we believe this pandemic may have, if extended lockdown were required? How do we plan to maintain adequate resource?

The situation is obviously changing all the time and we will continue to keep a watching brief on developments in the following ways:

We have instigated a daily Director’s COVID-19 call at 8.30AM each morning to discuss developments the previous day and to ensure we react swiftly to the changing situation particularly with respect to government advice.
All staff check in to dedicated HR mailbox by 9AM each morning and are expected to notify us of any changes in their personal situation.