ABSTRACT
I interpret these contributions not as a physician, but as one who comes from a mathematical discipline working within France Telecom, a company of some 200,000 employees, half of whom are located within France, and the other half outside. My responsibility in the France Telecom group is to develop and implement a pandemic plan throughout the world, to adapt different versions of the plan to meet the needs of different countries. In addition, I represent the Club de la Continuité d’Activité, or the Business Continuity Management Group. This group is composed of more than 60 companies, mostly in France, and has undertaken pandemic preparations to ensure the continuity of business activities. Our aim has been to exchange approaches and strategies in developing pandemic preparedness plans and to develop a general framework for other companies that are in the process of creating and implementing their own strategies. In large companies usually one or two employees are dedicated to elaborating such plans, but smaller companies may find that process especially challenging because they have so few employees. Different national plans have not addressed this problem, and we think that it remains critically important to assist small companies in elaborating and implementing plans for the continuity of activities during a pandemic.
