Crisis Management

Crisis Management is centred around protecting an organisation's future. The purpose of a Crisis Management Plan (CMP) is to provide an effective, fit-for-purpose predefined and documented framework and process to enable an organisation to effectively manage a crisis event. Crises may be of a physical nature i.e. a crisis affecting the site, or a non-physical type crisis such as a threat to reputation/brand or a security issue e.g. a kidnap/burglary.

No organisation, board or chief executive can afford not to have a crisis management and recovery plan in place. Every leader and manager dreads the unwanted and unexpected call (often after hours) advising there has been serious incident at their workplace or organisation. The police, fire and ambulance services can usually manage an immediate life-threatening emergency, but who looks after the aftermath and impact to your business. Those to consider would include government regulators, suppliers and contractors, the families of those affected; and who talks to the media and the stock exchange? Who looks after the emerging impacts of the immediate peripheral issues, the non-operational response to protect people, assets and reputation?

Equally important, who is responsible for ensuring your business will quickly recover and continue to operate? At this point it is usually too late to be thinking there should have been a detailed crisis management and recovery plan in place that could activate a well-trained team at short notice.

If the organisation survives the next 24 hours, it could still be make-or-break time for the organisation dependant on your actions.

Will you and your business survive the trauma, stigma and publicity of having its operations under the unrelenting forensic probing of regulators, media, shareholders, insurance assessors and lawyers, all intent on finding someone to blame?

Standby provides clear and readable reports on all aspects of crisis management planning and recovery. Practical, proven solutions are offered to a wide range of critical situations.

Our approach is to help organisations anticipate and manage crisis situations. Contingency plans are developed in line with organisational policies, and checklists and systems can quickly be instigated.

Crisis action plans are developed to deal with groups such as stakeholders, employees, victims, financial markets, political leaders, bureaucrats, international affiliates, shareholders and of course, the media.

Training, testing and maintenance of the program are conducted as part of the strategic process. Working with management, Standby will implement strategic, integrated crisis management, recovery and business continuity frameworks, supported by continually tested and updated programs.

Standby will help:

• Identify the crises most likely to threaten your organisation
• Arm your organisation with proactive and auditable protocols and plans to manage crisis events
• Train your own response teams to deal with a crisis
• Develop seamless communications between management and recovery processes that fit into mergency/security and general organisational structures.

To discuss your specific needs or request a proposal, contact Standby regarding this topic.

A whitepaper has been developed for Crisis Management.