Under the project on Private Sector Engagement in Disaster Risk Reduction, ADPC together with the Office for Small and Medium Enterprise Promotion (OSMEP) and the Department of Disaster Mitigation and Preparedness (DDPM) of Thailand launched an orientation workshop on business continuity planning. The workshop aimed to build awareness and expertise in disaster and risk management for local SMEs through business continuity planning (BCP) to ensure smooth business operation before, during and after disaster.

The workshops identified the importance of business continuity planning within the tourism and manufacturing sectors in Thailand to enable local business owners to deal with the impacts of disaster. The participants were taught how to set up a crisis management team to prioritize activities and resources in an efficient manner. Participants also designed BCP on a Page based on a given scenario as well as creating their own way to exercise or test the plan.



The importance of tsunami planning

Kusuma Kinglek, General Manager for Aonang Princeville Resort and Spa in Krabi in Thailand remembers the damage from previous tsunamis and the issues it caused for many hotels in the area.

“Hotels are run mostly by local people who are not highly educated in business continuity planning. This point is very critical for us and this is a great program to alert people,” she says.

Ms. Kinglek said that business continuity planning is important within the tourism sector to build more networks and share knowledge and resources to better prepare for disaster and help each other. She expressed a great wish for the rest of her team to attend future events on this subject to build a comprehensive business continuity plan within her resort.

Ms. Dejaritt, Managing Director for AEC Business (Asia) Co. Ltd. also described the importance of business continuity planning to Thai SMEs and offered her full support.

“As a big company, a business continuity plan is easy to do, but I didn’t have a concrete plan for the tsunami in 2004. This class helped me to prepare a business continuity plan in a written document, it was very useful.”

ADPC also organized similar workshops for SMEs in logistics, ICT and automotive sectors on 29 May and will offer support for SMEs in developing a business continuity plan with their company for the next year.