The coronavirus has hit a well-known Hedge Fund’s NY based office. An employee at Point72 tested positive last week. Employees were told to work from home while the office undergoes a deep cleaning.

Headlines like this may leave you wondering what you should be doing for your business. As a follow-up to our article sent two weeks ago, we are providing more updates and guidance.

Are you still allowing visitors in your office? This has been a question on the top of many minds. Due to the fears of coronavirus spreading we are seeing many things cancelled/rescheduled such as conferences, public gatherings etc. Should you reconsider who you let in and out of your office? While anyone can be affected, including employees and visitors, it makes sense to lessen your exposure.

This can be done by allowing employees to work from home. Set up calls or video conferences with partners/vendors. Ask others if they are open to rescheduling meetings.

Some firms are focused on their Business Continuity Plans to ensure they can still run a business in the time of a pandemic. They are confirming they have the technological and administrative resources to allow employees to work from home. Others have not been so diligent.

If you have not considered a situation where your entire office may have to work remotely, you should do so now. You may feel well prepared, or maybe you think it is too late to create a plan, whichever boat you sit in, there is still time to prepare, or confirm you are prepared. Do some of the following:

  • Make sure you have appropriate resources to support a remotely working staff for an extended period. Do you have contracts, services or licenses that need to be updated?
  • Consider the possibility of key employees being affected, impeding their ability to perform certain tasks. Who else can fill in?
  • Determine which vendors are critical to support a remote workforce and ensure they have appropriate BCP. Have they been communicating their plans to you?
  • If you are using an MSP (IT Provider), consider a backup plan if their key employees are affected. Who else can you reach out to?
  • What happens if there is a major internet service provider outage that affects multiple remote workers? Are their cellular or satellite backups? Can some else perform a task?

While you are dealing with keeping your business running, do not forget about your cybersecurity projects. We can perform many projects remotely for you, such as:

  • Policy and plan development
  • Risk Assessments
  • Vulnerability assessments and/or penetration tests
  • Phishing Testing
  • Vendor Diligence Reviews
  • Public Cloud Analysis