18.03.2020 – Corona virus – Information for our customers
Coronavirus – Activation of our business continuity plan
(15.05.2021) Even if this post is 2 years old: We are still in the home office and all the measures described still apply:
We, at INS, are closely monitoring the development of the coronavirus infection in Germany and Europe. Therefore, we assess and reassess the situation to the best of our knowledge and thus, draw meaningful and responsible consequences. Our risk assessment is based in particular on the data, information and recommendations from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and the German Federal Center for Health Education (BZgA).
We are currently receiving many inquiries from our customers about how we react to the current development, and how we, at INS, can fully ensure the contractual service provisions.
Our customers and employees safety and health is our top priority. Therefore, we launched our pandemic crisis plan on March 15th.
Over 95% of INS’ workforce was instructed to work via home office until further notice. The few who are still working from our company grounds do so due to technical reasons and adhere to very strict security guidelines.
This crisis clearly shows us, why we have made emergency and contingency plans in the past, and why we regularly test them in complex scenarios: we have stable processes at our disposal, excellent technology, and tested communication pathways that wok even under pressure.
Nothing will change for our customers:
We can easily be reached in our home office with the usual telephone number thanks to Swyx, and can access our usual work environment remote thanks to Citrix. Nevertheless, we also employ high security standards in accordance with the requirements of the internationally recognized standard of ISO/IEC 27001 when in home office.
Specifically, this means:
As part of our business continuity management, we have defined and implemented comprehensive security measures. Below you will find an overview of actions taken by INS to ensure the provision of services without restriction in accordance with the contractually agreed service levels:
- Through the consistent implementation of the processes according to ISO 27001 (information security) and ISO 9001 (quality management), we established comprehensive business continuity concepts and a pandemic crisis plan a few years ago and had them certified by DQS.
- We apply these concepts in the current situation and take appropriate technical and organizational actions to ensure that our employees can also carry out their tasks remotely in home office without limitation.
- For a small number of tasks, on-site presence at your premises or in our data centers is still required. For the fulfillment of these tasks, we have ensured that our employees will be on site when needed to perform the necessary hands-on services.
- In regards to our partner companies, especially the data center providers, we are in close contact, and regularly check the implementation of their existing emergency plans.
- All of our partners use certified emergency concepts in accordance with ISO / IEC 27001, like INS. These ensure that the employees of our data center providers have access to all relevant systems remotely at any time to manage smooth operations of the data centers (power supply, air conditioning, access and monitoring technology, other IT technology …).
- Of course, we take the recommendations of the authorities regarding participation in or implementation of events into account, and have canceled participation in all events until further notice. All business trips which are not absolutely necessary for hands-on services are strictly restricted.
Through these actions we ensure that the contractually agreed services can be provided for our customers without any restrictions.
We are at your disposal at any time regarding further information, or to answer your questions. Please use the existing and known communications channels.
We bid you steady nerves, vigour and a good amount of optimism for the coming weeks. Stay healthy!