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Enable cross-functional collaboration and accelerate your product lifecycle with a cloud-based platform for innovation
Design Process and Quality System Development Tools in Product Lifecycle
Get full visibility over your product design processes and make collaboration easy to get your products to market faster, compliantly
Design Quality: Connecting Design to Documentation
Transform customer complaints to valuable sources of insights for continuous improvement through smart automations and integrated regulatory reporting
Challenges with Triage and Investigation in Complaints Management Process
Say goodbye to paper! Modernize your processes with connected document, training, and change management
Manufacturing Challenges and Industry Trends Towards Digital Transformation
Transform quality into an enabler: boost efficiency, increase satisfaction, and trim costs with a fully connected, AI-powered quality management solution
Frost Radar for Quality Management Systems Names ComplianceQuest Leader
Enable risk-based thinking throughout your quality processes with a fully integrated risk management solution
Automation of the Risk Management Lifecycle with AI and Analytics
Increase supplier performance, reduce costs, and streamline your supply chain with integrated supplier quality and collaboration tools
The Ultimate Guide to Next-Generation Supplier Management [e-Book]
Identify and minimize safety events. Prevent accidents, safeguard workers, and ensure their well-being and health
Safety Essentials: Key ‘Must-have’ Components for Safety Management at Any Enterprise
Proactively and accurately monitor and measure your company’s impact on the environment to improve performance and reach your environmental and sustainability targets
Environmental & Sustainability Management
Electronic and Automated Approach to Audit Management
Managing the Tools of the Trade
Manage Operational Risk Tracking, Evaluation, Mitigation and monitoring
Leveraging CAPA for Continuous Improvement
Ensure your laboratory is compliant with systematic and efficient laboratory investigations
Incident Reporting and Management
Organization, Collaboration and Governance for Efficient Changes
Conduct smart management review meetings with a tower of data to improve your quality and safety systems
Gain 360 degree vision into enterprise wide Safety risks
Enhance Safety and Compliance with Smarter Chemical Management
Ensuring Quality across Departments & Locations
Partner With Suppliers And Vendors To Improve Quality And Safety
Create Loyalty by Addressing Customer Complaints Smartly
Bring Consistency to Permit Practices
Make it easy for your people to manage, track and analyze environmental and sustainability metrics
Bring higher quality products to market quicker with design controls, projects & DHF
Streamline Permit Management and Ensure Compliance
When Learning Propels Organizational Growth
Improve efficiency, productivity, and compliance with a solution designed for today's diverse workforce learning styles
Strategically manage the complete lifecycle of your product
Efficient Waste Management for Compliance & Sustainability
Relevant Information within reach - Always.
Assuring Quality Products and Services
ComplianceQuest covers the whole spectrum of customers, industries and regions across the world. Whether it is a small, medium or enterprise sized manufacturer, companies choose ComplianceQuest for its end-to-end Product Lifecycle, Quality, Safety and Supplier Management Solutions.
Leveraging AI to Create a Safer Workplace Environment
Why an EHS Solution Built on Salesforce Works Better Than One Built on AWS or Azure
Humans: The Real Superheroes of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Quality Management
ComplianceQuest Medical Devices QMS Success Stories eBook
Complaint Handling Process for MedTech and Life Science Companies
Audit Management
Aphria (now Tilray) CIO talks about their implementation of ComplianceQuest, Rootstock and Salesforce
Unlocking the Value of Complaints
Why You Need to Digitally Transform Your QMS
The Ultimate Guide to ISO/IEC 17025:2017 Compliance
Safety Technology Trends to Watch in 2023 (Infographic)
Data-driven Safety – Strategic Resources for Monitoring of Key Performance Indicators
American Society of Quality Lean Six Sigma Conference
23 Feb, 2025
Phoenix, AZ
Transform to a fully connected business with a next-generation AI-powered Product Lifecycle, Quality, Safety, and Supplier management platform, built on Salesforce.
Our connected suite of solutions helps businesses of all sizes increase product, quality, safety, and supplier as they bring their products from concept to customer success.
Where Your Career Takes Flight: Join our dynamic team and be part of an innovative, collaborative and rewarding workplace culture.
Impact Through Action: How the ComplianceQuest team supports social causes and community engagement
The Pulse of ComplienceQuest: Our newsroom shares stories of innovation, progress, and change
Stronger Together: How our partnerships drive success and innovation
COVID-19 has become a health crisis of unimaginable proportion – it’s become almost impossible – both for individuals and enterprises – to decide ‘What next?’.
As business leaders engage in scenario planning to make sense of the economic impact and figure out the recovery process, one thing is for sure: we’re gearing up for a ‘New Normal’.
Business leaders have a ton of questions. How do we stabilize our business? How do we manage an all-digital workforce? How do we adjust our costs? What is our near-term strategy? How do we ensure the efficiency of operations, in their current ‘new normal’ state? What about ensuring quality and compliance, while some of my processes have changed? The most difficult question of all and one that probably has no answer: When is this going to end?
The purpose of this blog is certainly not to offer a solution to all these questions. But, as ComplianceQuest, we’re well-positioned to help you with one of these. And that question is: How do I ensure the Continuity of my firm’s Quality and Compliance Processes and maintain my state of Compliance despite a change to the workforce dynamics?
Before we get into answering the question mentioned above, let us take a brief look at the impact major disasters have had on businesses and the economy.
Disaster strikes and always without warning. It has often been in the form of nature’s fury that disrupts lives, no doubt, but it always has an economic impact too. For instance, in the year 2019, 409 natural catastrophe events resulted in economic losses of US$232 billion globally.
But this time, for the first time since the dawn of the digital age, the world is seeing a global lockdown of such magnitude. This time, of course, is very different. Both digital and physical infrastructure are intact. A deadly virus has largely crippled the movement of people and also has created economic destruction worldwide.
COVID-19 has proved to surpass most natural disasters any region may have ever seen. While technology is enabling work to continue in some form in some industries, businesses are gearing up for the ‘New Normal’.
McKinsey estimates a 40 to 50 percent reduction in discretionary spending, which would possibly impact GDP by 10 percent. The second-and third-order effects have not been factored in and could have a significant impact.
All the classic symptoms of a severe unplanned disaster can be seen. And the worst is that there is no clarity on when this pandemic will end and how businesses will resume in full swing.
And, of course, there are the healthcare, life sciences, biotech, and medical device sectors that are fighting a lone battle with the virus, to curtail its spread, discover new solutions and vaccines, and build testing kits and other medical devices to tackle the deadly spread.
This sector, more than any of the others, cannot afford any disruptions or quality gaps.
3.1 Supply ChainIn the case of such widespread disasters, the supply chain is affected due to disruption in manufacturing capacity, demand issues, cash flow challenges, transportation, and logistics. In the case of COVID-19, there’s the added challenge of not being able to operate with the best hands on deck. Employees are not able to come to work thanks to lockdowns and social distancing norms. A broken supply chain is affecting almost every sector from CPG and food supply companies to life sciences, healthcare, biotech, and pharmaceuticals.
3.2 Communication & CollaborationTypically, during natural disasters, the communication infrastructure may get hit with cables being uprooted and networks going down. However, the current scenario is unprecedented; While the infrastructure itself may be standing unharmed, the people manning the technology may not be operating at full efficiency. Authorizations for remote working, setting up suitable authentications, and cybersecurity may be a challenge, impacting productivity.
Also, most enterprises are not yet optimally designed for remote work, even as simple as having secure devices to work from, reliable internet connections, or the workers even having a workspace to work from, etc., and thus remote working presents a serious problem.
3.3 Personnel Challenges & Need for AutomationA pandemic of this kind certainly demands a health-first approach. Yes, the economy and business will suffer, but those can recover. One cannot take chances when it comes to personal health and the spreading of the virus.
Businesses need to re-align and speed their digital transformation efforts, driving more automation into key processes. While AI and automation will not stop the spread of the virus, emerging technology especially cloud-based software and automation-centric tools will come in handy and support initiatives such as social distancing. Also, with the widespread adoption of video technologies, it is being shown that activities once thought not conducive to doing business with is now acceptance and becoming the norm. Having screaming children in the background, which was considered unprofessional, is now considered Ok as everyone adjusts to the new normal for how work gets done. We see that more and more businesses will shift to the new model of working and thus need more and more technologies that are 100% cloud-based and not dependent on archaic on-premise architecture.
3.4 Equipment Maintenance & FailureDuring a pandemic, periodic audits and maintenance activity of equipment may suffer. The lockdown some countries are facing could be for as long as six months, during which time people will not be visiting the factories. This can cause the machines and equipment to underperform and lead to other unforeseen problems. The second and third-order effects are difficult to fathom with the current data, but one thing is for sure – business leaders need to chart out a game plan for indirect challenges.
Remote audits, predictive maintenance, and IoT-based monitoring are much needed. If your enterprise is already set up to embrace some of these Industry 4.0 solutions, it’ll be a simpler process to manage equipment in your firm’s manufacturing supply chain.
3.5 Impact from a SlowdownThese are times of uncertainty. In Europe and the United States and the world over, there has been a massive decline in economic activity. The loss of income in one quarter is expected to be more than during the Great Depression, adjusted for timelines.
Resilience, and cash management for liquidity and solvency will become top priorities. Businesses that survive this stage will have to prepare themselves to meet the requirements of the upward swing of the economy after this phase passes. But in the meantime, they have to be able to retain and serve existing businesses, maybe even carry them along by helping them survive and grow over time.
Based on our interaction with numerous clients and the experience of implementing the ComplianceQuest EQMS in a wide range of sectors including manufacturing, pharma, and biotech, medical devices, automotive, aerospace, and CPG sectors, we believe the first step to Business Continuity Management (BCM) is to build stability.By stability, we mean the following:
This stability can truly be achieved with the right quality processes. If your QMS is not geared up for this new approach, there’ll be all kinds of long-term and short-term mishaps, including ones involving customers. It can be detrimental to your brand.
Once your ‘New Process’ is set, the immediate next step is to document your ‘New Quality Process’ and Expectations.
At ComplianceQuest, we offer a modern, next-generation, real cloud-based EQMS that can deliver the following solutions of critical importance:
Each of these solutions can integrate with the rest of your ERP and CRM systems if needed and can be scaled up or down depending on your current need. Additionally, as a product built for the cloud from the ground up, we’re highly secure and flexible, with secure platform access available anytime, anywhere.
For a more detailed perspective on the topic of business continuity, download our whitepaper titled Beyond COVID-19: How an EQMS can help drive Business Continuity, as we gear up for a ‘New Normal’ here.
ComplianceQuest’s next-generation EQMS will certainly make your quality management process more efficient. Visit https://www.compliancequest.com/lp/eqms/ for a demo.
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