Business Resumption When Disaster Strikes
A Crisis Plan is a ‘Must Have’ for Every Company
This article brings forth worst case scenario issues as a role playing development process. One worst case scenario is if a dirty bomb exploded within a 10-mile radius of business. What would the business do? What contingency plan is in place for such a disaster? Would the company cease operations or could the company survive such a catastrophe? The article suggests that without the creation and maintenance of a crisis plan the cards would be stacked against the company in such a crisis situation.
Key Point 1
Quite possibly the most notable points made in this article is the author’s opinion, that the time to figure out all of the crisis management details is before not after or during the actual crisis. Without a crisis management plan to resort too, many situations could “spiral out of control”(Moed, 2002). Important information, such as, insurance policies, phone numbers, files, programs, etc. could disappear in a crisis, but if a there was a detailed contingency program in place then these items would be available when needed.
Key Point 2
Crisis management must be a team effort to be successful. Major departments within a company need to work together to properly prepare for a crisis. These departments should role play major disasters and create an evaluation system to measure the performance of department executives. Edward Moed of PepperCom suggests a five step approach to evaluating management’s preparedness during a role play situation. The system should measure the composure of executives and evaluate their ability to collect information; whether there was a proper assessment of the challenges and barriers; evaluation of the reaction to the crisis and whether the action plan was implemented properly; an evaluation of the evaluating process and goals; and the overall success of the of the hypothetical crisis with suggestions for future crisis management. The article suggests that the actual management of the crisis can be more important than the crisis itself (Moed, 2002). A small crisis could explode into a crisis of real significance due to poor management and improper responses.
My Company
Cal-Care Medical does not have a disaster plan available. There are some simple steps they have taken to prevent complete destruction of the business in the event of fire or other disaster. The company has a tape backup of all the computer systems, which is sent home with an employee once a week. It has been suggested that this is not the best method of backing up the computer files, because restoration from tape backup is a tedious time consuming process.
At this time, a catastrophic event would probably equal the demise of the business. There are insurance policies for such incidents, but by the time new facilities were constructed our clients would have disappeared. Without advanced relocation contracts or equipment borrowing capabilities, it would [next page]