The COVID-19 pandemic shows just how hard it is to prepare for major business disruptions. Nobody expected a global pandemic to throw off so many businesses and many have not properly quantified the risks of being affected long-term in such an event.  

Lots of businesses have had very little time to prepare for the impact, with business continuity plans not including the scenario. Crisis management now revolves around abandoning budgets completely and cutting expenses wherever possible just to try to stay afloat.

Unfortunately, this means that every expenditure and every budget from major functions are being scrutinized, cut down, or removed completely.

Moving away from reacting

This approach is to be expected as businesses have had no other choice but to go for what many would describe as a knee-jerk reaction to COVID-19.

But now, in the middle of the crisis, businesses need to make time to move away from the reactive approach and work on long-term pandemic mitigation strategies if they want to stay viable.

Pivoting quickly is the name of the game and that includes reevaluating expenditures, impact, and short or long-term goals amidst this novel crisis.

Getting the priorities straight

The number one priority is to keep the business viable. For most, this means accelerating the digital transformation, enabling employees to work from home and offering services online.

As an IT and cyber professional, you’ll need a way to show the board the impact the COVID-19 crisis has on business technology, how it affects employees, the impact of downtime, new regulations, and how your solutions can help mitigate negative effects.

You need a way to make it abundantly clear what parts of the IT budget are needed for keeping all essential services and functions and making a move towards digitization and business functions.

 

For all of this to be justifiable in times when boards have taken a cutthroat stance towards most expenditures, you need to quantify everything single IT expense right now.

Remember, the board is now looking to take away anything they deem unnecessary, so don’t go for any type of “nice to have” things in the IT budget – you need to rebuild the budget according to the current crisis and make a good case for the crucial “staying in business” expenses right now.

Boardish helps you rebuild your IT budget

As a tool that can quantify different cyber and technological events and regulatory changes, Boardish helps you present what really matters to the board right now – solutions that will keep the business running throughout the crisis and which options will mitigate the impact on the business the most.

With most employees staying home, the business will need a robust platform that will enable them to connect from home and work efficiently, but at the same time mitigate any risk of cyberattacks when connecting this way.

 

Maybe the organization is not ready to implement such a system now, but the alternative – not working for a while – is actually worse than they think, or is it? You can quantify whether it’s better to ‘hibernate’ or ‘push forward’ using financial figures.

With Boardish, you can show the board the impact on the bottom line in case employees can’t work from home at all, versus working from home with different platforms and solutions that can help keep the operations running.

While implementation in the middle of the crisis sounds like something the board would never agree to, with the 

numbers for your specific business to back you up, you can show them that stopping operations or even letting people go will cost them more in the long run can make it harder after the crisis is over.

With real figures to back you up, you’ll be able to make a solid case in front of the board and ensure your IT budget can support the business and operations through these uncertain times.

 

Boardish started as and always will be an IT budgeting tool that helps gain immediate clarity. Rebuilding the budget is much easier when you can quantify everything and speak in financial figures instead of just labelling risk as low, mid or high.

Start Rebuilding Today

We’re well aware that right now you can’t invest in anything that’s not considered absolutely crucial to keeping the business running.

Because of that, you can use all of the Boardish features for free for the next 2 months during the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to get the clarity you need.

It’s time to put these new risks into actual numbers and bridge that communications gap with the board.