Communication Service Providers

How BPM services can enhance crisis communication?

Emergencies do not come with a warning. A crisis is no longer surprising in this eventful world but still unforeseeable. Crises in businesses can cause damage and bring down large organisations to their knees in a very short while. To safeguard a business from such unpredictable setbacks, it is necessary to plan for crisis management communication for immediate assistance and damage control.

What is crisis communication?

Crisis communication is the dispersal of information across an organisation to address an emergency of any kind. Such crises or emergencies include natural disasters, financial scandals, cyber-attacks, public relations disasters and more. It is the process of managing potentially damaging events that impact an organisation’s financial, social, and operational well-being.

Types of crises

From large-scale layoffs and IT outages to pandemics, various internal and external factors can lead to crises in business. An organisation’s ability to withstand rapid changes and its preparedness to face adversities eventually decides the scale of damage caused by

• Natural crisis
• Financial crisis
• PR crisis
• Organisational crisis
• Technological crisis
• Workplace violence crisis

The role of communication in crisis management

Crises put companies and their systems under the microscope, and clear and concise communication plays a crucial role at such times. Crisis management and communication plans, when done right, can help organisations handle the curve balls in business continuity management.

Companies are legally obligated to convey the risks at hand to the employees and the stakeholders. Not communicating information to the people within an organisation can lead to them finding out about the situation from elsewhere, which means the company loses the agency to voice their matters themselves. In short, they lose their control over the narrative, and it affects their integrity.

BPM in different departments to enhance crisis communication

The scope of business process management is vast; the skill sets lie in identifying how and where to employ them within the company and the workflow. BPM can be employed in the various departments in the following ways:

Finance department

• Use of analytical dashboards to track cash inflow and outflow
• Automate extraction of relevant data from invoices to collate the right financial information
• Streamline the expense reimbursement process from the requesters to approvers
• Enable smooth budget transfers between departments with automated templates

Human resource department

• Smooth out the employee onboarding process by automating the paperwork
• Automate paperwork between stakeholders for quick turnaround of employee forms and requests
• Use tools that can automate and route information to the managers, team leads, or HR to enable faster responses to employees with professional development requests
• Automate reminders for timesheet due dates to route information to relevant people

IT departments

• Use analytical dashboards across the organisation for data analysis and insights
• Use pre-built automation templates to systematise operations and information routings for helpdesks
• Accelerate the approval of requests from the team members

Legal department

• Expedite the approval process and legal reviews of contracts with process automation functionality
• Speed up the contract negotiation processes between stakeholders using digital signoff tools for ease of function

Sales department

• Fast-track deals and automate the process of routing contracts between relevant parties
• Use pre-built automation templates to pick up the pace for travel and expense requests for workflows within an organisation

Supply chain management

• Use analytical dashboards to identify all bottlenecks in the operations of an organisation
• Use process dashboards to track and identify the incoming and outgoing materials in the company

Unpredictability is the new norm, and businesses can be struck at any moment with a spectre of crises. To fortify all businesses against such unwanted setbacks, it is essential to have a good crisis management communication plan in place. Effective and timely communication is both a matter of corporate responsibility and a legal obligation to keep employees and stakeholders informed. BPM provides a diversified toolkit for enabling quick and effective crisis communication across a company.
Strategic use of BPM, along with a well-crafted crisis management plan, can help businesses withstand market waves and navigate the stormy seas of uncertainty with stability and efficiency. In short, crises may be unpredictable, but they need not be unmanageable.

For organisations on the digital transformation journey, agility is key in responding to a rapidly changing technology and business landscape. Now more than ever, it is crucial to deliver and exceed organisational expectations with a robust digital mindset backed by innovation. Enabling businesses to sense, learn, respond, and evolve like living organisms will be imperative for business excellence. A comprehensive yet modular suite of services is doing precisely that. Equipping organisations with intuitive decision-making automatically at scale, actionable insights based on real-time solutions, anytime/anywhere experience, and in-depth data visibility across functions leading to hyper-productivity, Live Enterprise is building connected organisations that are innovating collaboratively for the future.

How can Infosys BPM help?

Infosys BPM communication service providers offer innovative BPM solutions to empower organisations in undesirable circumstances. They also help restructure the workflow and make the most out of the resources at hand so that you endure all unforeseen circumstances with ease.