Evaluating Amazon's Business Continuity Plan Using the Kildow Template - Essay Sample

Introduction

The operations of a company can suddenly come to a halt in cases where a disaster like fire or floods disrupts business operations. Therefore, the organizations must have a business continuity plan in their strategy – that ensures they get back on track as soon as possible after a disaster strike. This paper uses the Kildow template to evaluate Amazon’s business continuity plan. Kildow is one of the essential tools for ensuring the continuation of a business process (Niemimaa et al., 2019). Kildow template provides various methods of improving the supply chain hence ensuring business continuation.

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The business continuity program is the section that tackles processes like the existence and significance of Amazon’s Company. Kildow templates provide parts for ten questions – where each item encompasses five ranging score – with one being the lowest and five being the highest. In the business continuity program section, Amazon accumulates a total of 48 points out of 50. Since the Company became number three in the audit ranking report and had not scored 50 in the continuity program – it is crucial for an evaluation to get underway for areas of improvement to become identified (Sáenz, Revilla & Acero, 2018). It has realized that it is rare for the Company to get a review by external auditors.

The second section focusses on the supply chain business continuity of Amazon. The Company gets 37 out of 40 for this segment. The inclusion of the supply chain department in the business continuity program resulted in the recorded score (Sáenz, Revilla & Acero, 2018). Amazon uses technology to monitor and document risks and threats using current operational data. Some of the recovery plans set include a business continuity plan and strategies for the supply chain department. The Company needs to appoint one director at the management level to coordinate all supply chain activities (Schlegel & Trent, 2015). Also, Amazon needs to update the list of the possible alternate supplier periodically.

Section three deals with security, facilities, and life safety systems. In this section, the Company did particularly well by scoring 20 out of 20. The reason for these results gets attributed to the orientation and safety training to its employees. Furthermore, the Company takes security seriously – thus, it has endeavored to ensure all employees have emergency contacts. Amazon also has a robust security system like fire extinguishers, lighting, fire alarms, and suppression systems. The building that houses Amazon operation has the state of the art access control systems.

Section four evaluates the training and awareness of the programs of the Company. The compared performed relatively well under this category by scoring 17 out of 20. It is imperative to note that Amazon conducts periodic training of its employees concerning safety awareness procedures (Sáenz, Revilla & Acero, 2018). The Company ought to ensure that a good business continuity training program becomes drawn well.

The firth and the last section is business continuity. The Company managed to score 24 out of the 25 points. It shows that Amazon employees have fully implemented its response procedures to tackle business continuity - and it can handle sudden unforeseen process interruptions (Schlegel & Trent, 2015). However, the Company needs to make a slight improvement in ensuring that all the employees get adequate business continuity training and provide all the employees with emergency contacts.

The use of the Kildow tool in testing the supply chain business continuity has proven to be a handy tool. The tools identify and evaluate all the sections that are performing well and those areas that need improvement in the Company’s business continuity plan. The total score is 146 out of 155. The rating affirms that Amazon has become committed to ensuring exceptional results using a business continuity plan. Probably the areas that need some slight improvement include sections one, two, and four; hence the top management must look for modalities of incorporating the organizational culture to help in boosting the overall performances.

References

Niemimaa, M., Järveläinen, J., Heikkilä, M., & Heikkilä, J. (2019). Business continuity of business models: Evaluating the resilience of business models for contingencies. International Journal of Information Management, 49, 208-216. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2019.04.010

Sáenz, M. J., Revilla, E., & Acero, B. (2018). Aligning supply chain design for boosting resilience. Business Horizons, 61(3), 443-452. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2018.01.009

Schlegel, G. L., & Trent, R. J. (2015). Supply chain risk management: an emerging discipline. Boca Raton: CRC Press. https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=4cWsBAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=Schlegel,+G.+L.,+%26+Trent,+R.+J.+(2015).+Supply+chain+risk+management:+an+emerging+discipline.+Boca+Raton:+CRC+Press&ots=GtKZPrpx_o&sig=Fx29uOqhkpauCmf-JktplJewegM&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false