A pandemic? Let alone. For 82% of companies from 41 countries around the world, including Italy, the one linked to the global spread of a virus, as happened with Covid-19, it wasn't even in the top-10 of possible risks. And consequently less than 30% of the EMEA sample of companies (Europe-Mediterranean area) had a pandemic plan ready for the eventuality before Covid (Asia-Pacific is a little better, where half of the companies had prepared it). This data is provided by Aon, the first group in Italy and in the world in risk and human resources consultancy, in insurance and reinsurance intermediation.
At the time of the 2019 Aon Global Risk Management Survey (the biennial research on the risks perceived by the managers of the main global companies belonging to different sectors), in fact, pandemic risk occupied 60th place out of 69 identified risks. Precisely in the very last places, this is to make people understand the perception of the problem until a year and a half ago, even in highly organized and profitable companies. And this also to make it clear how much life has changed for these companies, which a year ago by force of circumstances were unable to quickly face the Covid-19 pandemic, struggling to produce an immediate response.
But now they are getting organized, so much so that the Aon report also highlighted that for 80% of those interviewed, the pandemic has taught them to adopt a integrated critical event management approach, through greater collaboration between the various corporate functions, primarily those of Risk, Human Resources, IT and Finance. “Building a successful business risk management strategy will lie in the
ensure that the workforce is able to adapt, communicate and collaborate as a crisis strikes,” Aon wrote in the release.
