As the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the globe in the early months of 2020, government restrictions on work and travel began to dramatically impact the workforces of organizations, large and small. Organizations were not only required to transition their own employees to remote work, but their vendors had to do the same, which resulted in huge business continuity challenges. The restrictions forced organizations and their vendors to respond quickly and creatively to find new ways to continue working together effectively.
A major oil and gas company for which CGI is providing a range of critical technology services felt the impact especially, with operations across multiple regions. Supporting the client with both global and local service delivery, CGI faced intense pressure to adjust its client delivery model rapidly to prevent any service disruption to the client.
The advantage of expert business continuity planning
Within each client region supported by CGI, there were different mandates and guidelines to follow during the pandemic. CGI had to first assess those differences and align its staffing and service delivery accordingly.
Through comprehensive business continuity plans and procedures already in place, CGI was able to act fast in completing this assessment and responding with the right actions to ensure compliance and continued operational excellence across every region.
A smooth and seamless transition to remote work
Part of CGI’s business continuity planning for this client involved transitioning a 1,200-person CGI team in offices across the globe to remote work within a very short timeframe. With the right digital tools provided, the team was able to maintain close collaboration with client teams, while ensuring ongoing productivity and service levels.
In addition, CGI modified its technology infrastructure to support additional bandwidth demand as the team transitioned to remote work, and throughout the transition focused continuously on staff safety and health.
CGI’s business continuity planning not only ensured a smooth and seamless transition to remote work, but also resulted in a distributed workforce less vulnerable to significant impacts from regional health events.
The client acknowledged that, through CGI’s proactive response, hundreds of applications and thousands of users experienced no service disruption. It also gave credit to CGI for not only safeguarding business continuity but also caring about staff health and safety.
Through expert business continuity planning, CGI helped the client respond with confidence to the crisis and position itself for a strong rebound post-pandemic.
