Pandemic "Toolkits" for Businesses

The Fortune 500 have their own consultants, and they've been on the case for some time. But smaller businesses are dependent on public services to help with Pandemic Planning. Now, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and international shipping company DHL are offering free pandemic planning guidelines to smaller businesses.

Pandemic toolkit for businesses

The Ontario Chamber of Commerce will release a Pandemic Tool Kit, designed to help businesses lessen the impact of a potential influenza pandemic on their operations.

The tool kit outlines the possible effects of an influenza pandemic, and preparations that can be made by businesses in order to help them maintain operations during such an event.

The tool kit will be released at media briefings across the province at 10:00 a.m. on January 9, 2007 including at the Gladstone Hotel at 1214 Queen St. W. in Toronto.

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Ten assumption-busting guiding principles for business pandemic planning

Scenario-based business continuity planning must rely on and build sets of assumptions, most often based on our collective experience of geographically specific disasters. But when preparing for continuity of business through an influenza pandemic, we may overlook key differences between a pandemic and any other disruptive event – natural or man-made – for which businesses prepare: Pandemics are:
1) Global
2) Simultaneously disruptive and
3) Prolonged.

In a severe pandemic, political instability, economic disruption, breakdowns in global markets, infrastructure and security will result in a dramatically altered economic landscape. Unprepared businesses may never recover and there exists the potential for whole industries to change dramatically in response.

Offered below are ten ‘assumption-busting’ guiding principles for pandemic planning:

Good references if you can't afford a consultant.