Australian Business Solutions: Implementing a crisis and recovery management plan across borders

7/30/2019 Australian Business Solutions: Implementing a crisis and recovery management plan across borders

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060 AUSTRALIANBusiness Solutions

International business


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| By Barry Thomas |

AUSTRALIANBusiness Solutions 061

A corporate cri sis can st rike at an y moment and in any locat ion. Indeed,

a crisis relates to an incident, human or natural, that requires urgent

attention or action to protect life, property, environment or reputation.

In the age of digital media, it can be business as usual one day and,

without prior warning, the following day an international corporate

crisis can be in full swing. With an almost immediate news cycle these

days, increased scrutiny and the high expectations of consumers and

company stakeholders alike, such a crisis can transform an international

companys reputation overnight.

Every organisation, irrespective of where it is situated, is different

and faces unique risks to its ability to function. How well a business

emerges from a corporate crisis is not related to where it is located on

the map, but is usually reflective of preparations and the execution of a

well thought out crisis management plan.

When developing a crisis and recovery management plan across

borders, there are four fundamental phases to consider:

Planning: There Is No Excuse Not To And The Rewards Are

Significant

Some markets are inherently r iskier than others, and conducting

a crisis management audit of each site is the f irst port of call

to assess the organisations abil ity to respond to and recover

Implementing A

Crisis And RecoveryManagement PlanAcross Borders

from a crisis. For example, it would seem prudent to consider

a continuity plan in the event of an earthquake for Japanese

operations. Equally, operations that include manufacturing

capabil it ies wil l have a very different r isk profi le to off ice-based

sales and marketing teams.

Once the risk profile of a site is understood, effective crisis and

recovery management requires a plan.

The plan is a liv ing document, meaning it should be regularly

reviewed and updated, and include as a minimum:

instructions for activating the plan effectively;

contact details for a crisis team and crisis media spokesperson;

contingencies in the event members of the team are incapacitated ;

the roles and responsibiliti es for each crisis team member;

predetermined performance benchmarks for external support

services such as a call centre or distribution centre;

company policies and instructions to manage monitoring tools,

media and local online properties; and,

specific market considerations such as relevant regulatory

requirements.

When developing your plan and nominating your crisis team and

spokespeople in each market, remember to consider language as different

audiences, both internal and external, may have varying requirements.


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next phase and when doing so, it is important

to ensure that all messaging is communicated

in a clear and concise manner.

Monitoring is a fundamental component of

crisis management. You may want to consideractivating monitoring tools and specialists to

observe media and stakeholder discussions about

the issue and evaluate what impact the crisis has

had on your organisations corporate reputation.

It would be nave to think that a crisis will not

happen to you or your organisation and it is

important to remember that a crisis is not over

until you decide it is over. Once a global issue

is underway you will need to assess how it is

impacting each country, as again it will vary.

The most important considerat ion is to b e able

to evaluate how each market has managed the

issue and to feel confident that it was done so

with the highest level of integrity.

Barry Thomas is the Vice President and APAC

Managing Director of Cook Australia. Barry has more

than two decades of international leadership and

expertise in the pharmaceutical and medical device

industries and he currently spearheads the worlds

fastest growing region for Cook Medical. His current

position sees him working to expand the opportunities

for people in Asia to access Cook Medicals advanced

and minimally invasive medical devices.

Training: Putting The Planning Into

Practice

Now you have a suitable crisis and recovery

management plan established in all of your

sites, it is important to ensure those withresponsibilities identified in that plan are

capable of performing their duties. Where

necessary, incorporate regular training

sessions to fill any capability gaps. These

sessions should be tailored for each country

to address local risk factors, for example local

regulatory procedures, social media protocols,

compliance issues and safety procedures. The

media is also unique in every market, so it

makes sense to ensure the local spokesperson

is trained to get your organisations key

messages across effectively.

Exercise: Test And Review Your Processes

Each sites ability to respond to a crisis situationshould be regularly tested and reviewed. The

organisation should assess performance

criteria for incident preparedness and achieving

operational continuity at each site and tailor an

appropriate management system for it.

One way to do this is to facilitate a simulation

exercise, which is an incredibly effective

method to test how things will be managed

in a real life situation. Depending on your

International business

062 AUSTRAL IANBusiness Solutions

organisations size and budget, simulations

can be desktop exercises or full-scale

emergency scenarios in conjunction with local

emergency services. Each simulation should

involve a typical local scenario based on therisk profile of the site. As language, operational

procedures and regulatory requirements will

vary from market to market, it is important to

ensure each simulation is tailored accordingly.

This wil l add to cost, but it wil l ensure a

realistic simulation and an effective outcome

in terms of preparedness.

Managing The Crisis: As It Happens

Once the crisis and continuity plan is activated,

it is up to the crisis team leader to decide the

extent to which the crisis team needs to meet

and where. When the crisis is underway, there

are four key stages:

Information gathering and assessing thecrisis situation is the frst phase. This intelligence

is needed to evaluate the impact of what has

happened and coordinate next steps appropriately.

Decision making involves how the issue

will be handled, what key actions need to be

taken and how the information is going to be

communicated both internally and externally.

Communicating crisis specific messages

for internal and external stakeholders is the


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Australian Business Solutions: Implementing a crisis and recovery management plan across borders

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