Books

Business in a time of pandemic

Paul French leafs though a number of business tomes relating to Covid-19

Business writers have been working hard since the start of the year when it became increasingly obvious that the virus in Wuhan was likely to spread and epidemic would become pandemic. Of course many business sectors have been hit hard by the pandemic on every continent though, arguably, logistics and shipping have taken a special hit due to the very nature of the business being moving goods, commodities and people (crews) from place to place with a myriad of different rules, regulations, safety awareness and exposure to the virus.

Geary Sikich started thinking about the economic aftershocks of viral spreads after the avian flu pandemic, estimating a pandemic could cost the US economy alone up to $675bn (in 2008). However, in Protecting Your Business in a Pandemic, Sikich reminds us that humanity has been through pandemics before and that disaster management and business continuity are areas we know quite a lot about. Sikich’s book offers readers a practical guide for assessing the threat of pandemics to their own organisations from initial response to practical and hands-on guidance in the form of evaluation and assessment tools, exercises, and detailed examples. Special tools include an easy-to-use roadmap for developing and maintaining a comprehensive business continuity plan.

Robert Clarke’s Business Continuity and the Pandemic Threat was published more recently, in 2016, and is a primer in medical disaster management planning. Until Covid-19 it was considered the major study and guide on pandemic response. Looking at seasonal flu pandemics, zoonotic contagions such as Ebola, swine flu and avian flu as well as more Covid-like respiratory syndromes such as SARS and MERS Clarke looks at lessons learnt by business going back to the 1918-1919 Spanish flu pandemic as well as how multinational organisations such as the World Health Organisation (WHO), large national organisations, like the Centre for Disease Control (CDC), and national governments around the world can work together and co-ordinate. Looking to the (hopefully not too far) future Clarke also has a lot to say about the provision and delivery of vaccines and antiviral medicines to ensure cross-border business can continue to operate even if some countries are faring better than others in suppressing viruses.

Finally, the book that seems first out the gate in terms of distilling our business learnings so far from coronavirus – a collection of essays entitled The Business of Pandemics: The COVID-19 Story. From a business standpoint, there have been dramatic effects on logistics and supply chains, economic downfalls, bailouts of major industries and small businesses, and far-reaching calamities from around the world. Even though the Covid-19 story is still in its making, this book focuses on the business of pandemics as applied to Covid-19. Subject areas include topics everyone in logistics and shipping are thinking about right now including logistics and supply chain management challenges, how to conduct global business virtually and the likely global economic impact. Finally, there’s a long consideration of how the world will begin to seriously e-open markets and trans-national business. ●