Pacya: Managing business risks

OCCURRENCES of disasters have no schedule, they are impulsive and precarious but its likelihood to happen and its impact on living and non-living things can be mitigated or reduced.

The celebration of the Disaster Resilience Month this July is just in time for the completion of Business Continuity Plans (BCP) of five fortunate partner cooperatives of the Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (AFI). The co-ops hurdled a productive planning workshop with the top risk managers of Aboitiz Group on June 27 to 28 at the Strawberry Valley Hotel and Restaurant, La Trinidad.

On the first day, the facilitators familiarized the participants with the basic concepts of disaster risk reduction and management. It centered on the discussion that if the business has existing measures or capacities to combat the effects of a disaster, it has a lower risk to hazards, vulnerabilities and exposure.

Christine Kempeneers, a seasoned BC manager and the assistant vice president-Risk Management of Aboitiz Equity Ventures, introduced Business Continuity Management to Gusaran Wangal Water Service Co-op, Barangay Alapang Multipurpose Coop (MPC), Shilan MPC, Lamut MPC and Thanksgiving MPC.

Kempeneers said that business continuity management is the capability of the organization to continue the delivery of products or services at acceptable predefined levels following a disruptive incident (ISO 22301).

The co-ops were instructed and guided to accomplish streamlined forms to come-up with their BCP. It started with the profiling of each business entity and assessment of risks where threats and its risk rating were identified. After which, the impact of the threats/hazards were classified according to its impact on the different co-op capacities and the capabilities were ranked according to its importance to the organization. Based on the identified business functions/services, the co-op leaders developed their recovery time objective or the estimated time frame for the serviceability of each function during and/or after a disaster.

Another part of the workshop is the enumeration of needed business continuity resources in order to perform or deliver the co-op services. Aside from the resources, strategies and the key actions necessary were identified in order to recover each function. The planning ended with the listing of measures and activities to be implemented during the preparation, response and early recovery phases of a disaster to protect key assets.

Prior to the BCP with co-ops, the Group’s corporate social responsibility arm including WeatherPhilippines Foundation Inc., conducted a three-day Training of Trainers on Business Continuity Planning towards Resilient Enterprises on the last week of June. Participants included employees from the partner LGU, Coop Development Authority and other co-op stakeholders.

Aboitiz is true to its commitment to values specifically on integrity, teamwork, innovation and responsibility. These values keep the Group determined to cultivate a culture of advancing communities and business in areas where it operates. The conducted activities form part of the agreement forged between Aboitiz and the Local Government Unit of La Trinidad on the 2nd quarter of this year that intends to provide interventions focused on education and enterprise development.

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