How BDO Helped a Global Technology Services Provider Create a Crisis Management Team

Background & Challenges

A global technology services provider with 80+ offices and 10,000+ employees across 21 countries faced a growing number of incidents impacting its ability to provide essential services. The organization lacked a formalized crisis response structure and found themselves forced to react to the changing operating environment rather than proactively plan and respond.

Approach

When COVID-19 pandemic struck, the company was unable to implement a complete work-from-home strategy as it provided services and products essential to the operations of multiple critical infrastructure sectors. The company engaged BDO to help establish a crisis response structure to shift its paradigm from reactive to proactive, formalize its decision-making processes, and protect employees and operations while continuing to provide services to essential customers. The company realized that COVID-19 was not the only threat currently faced and that it needed to protect itself in a dynamic operating environment. BDO helped establish a crisis response structure which leveraged intelligence gathering and formalized decision-making processes.

Client Impact

The response and plan enabled most employees to work remotely, while allowing their offices to remain open and compliant with local safety regulations. BDO helped to formalize the crisis management capabilities into a program consisting of policies, engagement strategies, training and exercise plans, and a roadmap to guide the next three years towards program maturity. The program proved to be so valuable that the company hired a full-time crisis management team to capitalize on its investment. BDO supported the hiring and facilitated the onboarding process, ensuring a smooth transition from the BDO team to the internal team.