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Oleksiy Syrotyuk på Sigma Software i Kyiv. The plan was divided into different parts, such as
“Replace and Move”. While some colleagues were
“The success of the plan is a success for everyone on the road during the evacuation, team members
who has worked so assiduously on its development. who weren’t in the midst of moving went in and
A lot of preemptive effort went into educating and helped, covering for and replacing their colleagues.
preparing, learning, improving and repeating,” says This was one of the reasons why Sigma Software was
Evgeniy Yakovlev, head of Sigma Software’s Odessa able to stick to its schedules and maintain deliveries
office and one of the people who worked intensively for the first two weeks. Those weeks were by far the
to develop the continuity plan. most chaotic.
The employees had a lot on their shoulders, and Another part of the plan was “Prioritise and
during the initial period of the full-scale war, Oleksiy Execute”. In the first month, there were endless
was responsible for coordinating the logistics of finding questions to answer. During that period, the BCP
shelter for employees and their families who were team consisted of up to 30 people. These employees
forced to flee their homes. Tracing and keeping track worked around the clock to make sure the right
of everyone’s whereabouts. Arranging workplaces for actions were prioritised. They used prepared and
the employees. And at the same time communicating coordinated action lists, but in this emergency, those
delivery statuses and overall situation updates to all lists were supplemented with simple messages that
their customers. Many people took on this immense were clear, succinct, and reached everyone.
extra workload, but everyone did so without protest.
They all wanted to help and contribute. “No one in the BCP team panicked, and everyone
worked to help. If someone was in the middle of a
move and couldn’t be involved in coordinating imme-
diately, someone else jumped in and helped,” says
Evgeniy of the execution and application of the plan.
The determination and drive of our Ukrainian
colleagues is admirable. In many cases, their desire to
solve and help with problems has taken precedence
over their own well-being. This has been more the
rule than the exception.
“I remember during the first few weeks when I
was helping to arrange the evacuation from places all
over Ukraine. And a member of the BCP team stayed
behind and worked from Kharkiv. During the meet-
ings, we could hear the sounds of the heavy bombing.
But she just kept working, even though the world was
literally collapsing all around her,” recounts Evgeniy,
remembering the intense focus with which everyone
worked to resolve the situation.
In the early days, 1,400 employees and their family
members were evacuated on busses that had been
reserved several years earlier. They went mainly
to western Ukraine, where they were able to instal
themselves at Sigmas Software’s office in Lviv. At the
same time, about 300 employees, mainly women, were
evacuated out of the country and continued their work
in offices in Poland, Hungary, Portugal and Sweden.
