BUSINESS CONTINUITY
DELIVERING SEAMLESSLYAMID A GLOBAL CRISIS
The outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic has been one of the most challenging events for the world in the recent past. Its scale and far-reaching impact on lives and livelihoods have called for agile and synchronised response from governments and organisations alike.
At SBI Life, we invoked our business continuity plan on March 12, 2020 – much before the imposition of the nationwide lockdown. This was followed by five meetings of our Crisis Management Team (CMT) between March 13, 2020 and March 31, 2020. The CMT comprises heads of several critical functions such as Marketing, Operations, IT, Human Resources and Management Services, Legal, Brand and Corporate Communication, Risk, Business Strategy and Finance. We put in place a comprehensive plan following these meetings to ensure seamless service delivery while prioritising the safety and well-being of our people, customers and business partners.
SOME OF THE IMPORTANT STEPS TAKEN TO ENSURE BUSINESS CONTINUITY INCLUDED:
Sending communications to employees, distributors and customers to generate awareness around the lockdown and its implications
Issuing travel advisories, dos and don’ts, social distancing, and health and hygiene practices for employees
Providing hand sanitisers across all offices, mandating wearing a mask and discontinuing physical meetings
Facilitating work from home for continuity of operations
Handling several routine activities from home, including declaration of net asset value, salary processing and investment trading, among others
Ensuring adherence to all circulars and guidelines implemented by the regulators and authorities
Encouraging customers, employees and business partners to undertake transactions digitally
Ensuring smooth functioning of our online platforms for payment of renewal premium, reviewing fund balance, requesting for address change and switching funds, among others
Setting up a separate process to receive and process death claims related to the pandemic and driving awareness around the same on our website and other online platforms
Timely processing of employee salaries
Ensuring the well-being of the outsourced staff present in our offices as well as of vendors supplying manpower services to us
These are indeed testing times for individuals and businesses alike. That being said, we are not perturbed and are working together with all our stakeholders towards strengthening our resilience and improving our sustainability quotient.