Proceedings

The Importance of Business Continuity and Knowledge

Management during the Pandemic Period †
Tuana İrkey * and Aslıhan Tüfekci

Informatics Institute, Gazi University, Ankara 06680, Turkey; [email protected]

* Correspondence: [email protected]
† Presented at the 7th International Management Information Systems Conference, Online, 9–11 December 2020.

Abstract: Earlier in 2020 a knowledge management project was initiated with the aim of organiza-
tional performance improvement at a service company. A maturity model was applied for the gap
analysis and a systematic literature review was conducted to shape the project. As the COVID-19
grew to a global scale, the aim of the project has shifted into ensuring the business continuity of the
case company. Without major changes the project was carried out. At the end it was observed the
company not only operated without being affected from the pandemic situation but also improved
their organizational performance as aimed initially.

Keywords: knowledge management; business continuity; emergency and crisis management; case study

1. Introduction
Business continuity is a critical and frequently studied topic for both companies and
academia. Business continuity is the process of creating prevention and recovery systems
to deal with potential threats to an organization [1]. Organizations today are highly de-
pendent on all their stakeholders; this has caused companies to face a variety of disasters,
from simple power outages to fluctuations in the economies of the countries [2]. The year
2020 comes with an unexpected factor that interrupts business continuity: The pandemic.
Citation: İrkey, T; Tüfekci A. The
With restrictions and prohibitions following the rapid spread of COVID-19 disease, pro-
Importance of Business Continuity
duction and service processes have been adversely affected. The business world has
and Knowledge Management switched to a remote working model as advised by authorities. During this fast-develop-
during the Pandemic Period. ing period, companies that do not have a business continuity plan have suffered business
Proceedings 2021, 74, 18. https://doi.org/ and financial losses which also showed the importance of business continuity and
10.3390/proceedings2021074018 knowledge management one more time.
Knowledge exchange between countries played a major role during all stages of this
Published: 16 March 2021 period—from the emergence of COVID-19 to the disease taking this name, to govern-
ments taking measures based on information obtained by early affected countries to fight
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neu- the pandemic. When the knowledge is properly managed, it can help managing a crisis
tral with regard to jurisdictional such as a pandemic; on a smaller scale, it can ensure that an affected company remains in
claims in published maps and institu-
the market by maintaining its business continuity.
tional affiliations.
Knowledge management (KM) terminology has emerged from complexity in the
market, competition in technology and changes in customer demands. Knowledge man-
agement is the open and planned creation, renewal and implementation of the knowledge
Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Li- assets of the organization considering the people, process and technology elements in or-
censee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. der to achieve organizational goals by increasing the knowledge-based efficiency of the
This article is an open access article organization [3–6]. Literature on knowledge management shows that successful applica-
distributed under the terms and con- tions provide benefits such as increased business performance, increased competitive ad-
ditions of the Creative Commons At- vantage, creation of new business areas and innovation, reduced costs, time savings, and
tribution (CC BY) license (http://crea- increased decision-making ability to companies. This paper focuses on knowledge man-
tivecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). agement’s contribute to business continuity and crisis management, other benefits not

Proceedings 2021, 74, 18. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2021074018 www.mdpi.com/journal/proceedings

Proceedings 2021, 74, 18 2 of 6

mentioned as much. Earlier that year a knowledge management project was initiated with
the aim of improving the organizational performance at a service company. As the
COVID-19 grew to as a global scale and effected the business world, the aim of the project
has shifted into ensuring the business continuity of the case company with the emerging
conditions. Without major changes in the scope and the methods the project was carried
out. At the end it was observed the company not only operated without being affected
from the pandemic situation but also saw an overall improvement at organizational per-
formance as aimed initially.
This paper consists of three parts. Firstly, the ITIL based maturity model applied at
the case company to understand the present situation and the details of the conducted
systematic literature review focusing on the service sector to shape the project scope are
given under Materials and Methods. Secondly, under the Results, gap analysis results,
findings from the systematic literature review and the overall project outcomes are given.
Finally, the results of the study were summarized, and suggestions were made for future
studies.

2. Materials and Methods

This study was carried out in an IT services company. Firstly, a maturity model with
general management, service level management, business continuity, capacity manage-
ment and security management sections has been established by referencing the ITIL, one
of the most widely used service management frameworks, in order to understand the pre-
sent situation in the company. The maturity levels of the model are as follows: Level 0—
Not defined, Level 1—Defined at basic level, Level 2—Defined, Level 3—Managed, Level
4—Managed by evaluation, Level 5—Optimized. In addition to the maturity model to an-
alyze company processes, face-to-face interviews were also conducted. The results of the
gap analysis indicated that the difference between the desired situation and the present
situation was due to lack of knowledge management within the company. In order to
eliminate these problems, see the benefits of knowledge management and examine similar
applications, a systematic literature review (SLR) as adapted from the theoretical study of
Denyer and Tranfield [7] was conducted on the existing literature focusing on the service
sector.
”Knowledge management” and ”service” were selected as primary keywords while
”framework”, ”model”, ”architecture”, and ”method” have been identified as secondary
keywords for the SLR. These keywords were combined using Boolean operators and ob-
tained queries were searched on IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, Science Direct, Emer-
ald Insight, Sage Journals, Springer Link, Taylor & Francis Online, JSTOR and Wiley
Online Library databases. Year and title filters were added to queries to make the results
more relevant to the study focus. Obtained resource references were exported from data-
bases in BibTeX reference format, then transferred to the JabRef tool—an open source bib-
liography reference manager using BibTeX as its local file format. Using the JabRef, du-
plicate resources were eliminated. Rest of the resources were evaluated fundamentally
using title, abstract and keyword fields. There were 90 resources deemed appropriate, and
were examined in detail.
The findings obtained from the detailed analysis of the selected sources were con-
verted into solutions in correlation with the problems found during the gap analysis. So-
lutions are divided into three categories: people, processes, and technology. Each solution
proposal category has been prioritized considering the purpose and scope of the study
and a project plan was created afterwards. To control and monitor the project success fol-
lowing service metrics are defined: first response time, resolution time, closing time, num-
ber of e-mails from first response to resolution, number of requests not upheld with rea-
son, number of reminder e-mails until resolution. Moreover, it was decided to repeat the
maturity model assessment performed during the gap analysis to see the final condition.
Most of the solutions have already been put in place including determination of
knowledge needs of departments, review and redesign of business processes, selection of
Proceedings 2021, 74, 18 3 of 6

knowledge management tools and design of a knowledge management system and initi-
ation of organizational culture and learning efforts with the support of human resources
department when the first COVID-19 cases in Turkey were announced. Following the
cases, it was decided by the company to switch to remote-work as recommended by the
authorities. After this decision, the project focus is changed to ensure the business conti-
nuity to prevent the negative effects of the new rules and restrictions.
As a first response, the design of the knowledge management system was imple-
mented and tailored according to the business processes and department needs. A remote
work plan was created together with the human resources department and put in place.
Other than these quick responses, no major changes were made in project plan and ap-
plied methods. The project solutions are applied as determined with some insight gained
during the remote-work experience. The project period has ended after the lifting of main
prohibitions at the mid of the normalization period.

3. Results
The case company is a service company in the IT security field. The company closely
follows laws and regulations and operates governance, risk, and compliance standards
related to the IT security such as ISO/IEC 27001 information technology; security tech-
niques; information security management systems; requirements, ISO 22301 security and
resilience; business continuity management systems; requirements and Turkish Law on
the Protection of Personal Data (KVKK). These standards have a great focus on business
continuity, crisis management and contingency plans and the company has all suggested
practices in-place and updates them regularly. This was also observed in the maturity
model assessment conducted during the gap analysis. As seen in the Figure 1, the com-
pany scored close to Level 5—optimized in the security management area and again got
a close score to Level 4—managed in the business continuity area. Even though the com-
pany may seem capable to handle any crisis considering their readiness levels, the remote-
work transition is carried out using the newly implemented knowledge-based processes
and the knowledge management system. This has shown that the traditional business
continuity approaches are insufficient in the case of an unusual situations which effects a
much wider audience and territory than any unusual event such as pandemic. On the
other hand, knowledge management practices brought flexibility, easy accessibility, user
friendliness, a collaborative workspace, measurement and reporting and sustainability for
needed changes. During this period, not only operated business through the KMS but
started online training and certification programs through the system. At the same time,
many services such as training, support, maintenance, installation, and security opera-
tions are designed to be provided remotely again via the KMS. From an internal perspec-
tive, the defined service metrics showed improvement through the project. While the av-
erage first response time, resolution time, closing times are down to hours from working
days, number of e-mails sent for each case has critically dropped which also helped saving
time and increase employee performance. Moreover, the reminders were defined to be
sent automatically by the knowledge management system—another time-saving oppor-
tunity. From a competitive perspective, the company started to provide new services and
gained a new customer base while most companies in the sector were facing the risk of
going out of business. Moreover, new organizational knowledge was gained which were
used to update the business continuity plan and the disaster recovery to include similar
risks to the pandemic period. In Figure 1, the post-study results of the maturity assessment
are also given; improvement is observed in all areas, including those with high scores.
In this case study, the knowledge management integration was designed for a gen-
eral organizational change and not mainly focused on business continuity. The solutions
applied were derived from service sector best practices in the literature obtained during
the SLR, but this knowledge management approach still provided in-direct success for the
business continuity too. This has highlighted that the knowledge management is a valua-
ble asset for business continuity and crisis management.
Proceedings 2021, 74, 18 4 of 6

Figure 1. Maturity Model Application Results.

The study was initiated with the solutions based on the SLR findings. However, this
highlight could not be observed in the selected literature. The 90 resources as deemed
appropriate were examined in detail and analyses were made. In Figure 2, the sector dis-
tribution of selected papers is given. Disaster recovery as a sector field has three contribu-
tions. In Figure 3 application area distributions according to the 34 service areas given
under the ITIL [8] are shown. It is seen that only 16 out of 34 areas are contributed, one of
these areas is the incident management with four contributions while risk management
has one and no contribution was made to the service continuity management.

Figure 2. Sector Distribution of Selected Sources.

Proceedings 2021, 74, 18 5 of 6

Figure 3. Service Area Distribution of Selected Sources According to ITIL Application Areas.

4. Discussions
Service organizations are knowledge-intensive companies. Services contain lots of
knowledge coming from the continuous interaction between organizations and stakehold-
ers. There are numerous benefits that companies can achieve by obtaining and using these
knowledges. This paper highlights another benefit of knowledge management which is
business continuity and crisis management process improvements. The knowledge man-
agement project initiated with the best service sector practices obtained from academic
literature to improve organizational performance indirectly created an advantage for the
case company during the pandemic. The company, regardless of their readiness in accord-
ance with law, regulations and standards related to business continuity, managed the pan-
demic period via the knowledge management processes and systems brought with the
project. In contrast to traditional business continuity approaches; the centrality, flexibility
and ability to collaborate with faster, easier and remote access that comes with knowledge
management not only prevented the company from being adversely affected by the situ-
ation but also helped creating a competitive advantage allowing new service designs
while improving overall service performance. This has shown the importance of
knowledge management integrated business continuity approach.
In the reviewed literature, it was observed from the sector distributions that
knowledge management studies on disaster recovery were made but these studies fall
behind the sectors such as health, government, education, and finance. It was also found
from the ITIL application area distribution that two of the 16 areas contributed were risk
management and incident management; but no contribution was made to the area of ser-
vice continuity management. These analyses and distributions have also helped to make
the gaps in literature more visible.
In the near future, the pandemic and similar cases will be added to business continu-
ity standards and risk areas. Disaster recovery, business continuity and contingency plans
will start to include issues such as remote work. Thus, research considering knowledge
management for service continuity, disaster recovery, remote work and similar fields
should be made to close the related literature gap. It is also advised for companies to focus
on knowledge management practices regarding their sector and unique business traits to
obtain many benefits including improved business continuity capabilities.
Proceedings 2021, 74, 18 6 of 6

Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable.

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