AC BUSINESS CONTINUITY
Crisis Management
Crisis management concerns the immediate response to a crisis or serious incident that threatens to damage your business operationally or reputationally.
Actions taken during the early stages of an incident or crisis will significantly alter the outcome for your organisation: a fast effective response can shorten a crisis and minimise its impact; a random, uncoordinated response will almost certainly exacerbate it.
Crisis Management encompasses frameworks and structures both for the management of stakeholder relationships, in addition to crisis team roles and responsibilities, procedures and supporting resources. For situations involving operational disruption, it provides the necessary tactical coordination when implementing business continuity arrangements.
See below for ACBC's crisis management services
See also related crisis communication services.
Crisis Management benchmarking
Unless your Crisis Management process is a blank canvas, it will be highly beneficial to undertake a bench-marking exercise, in order to identify gaps and actions for improvement.
ACBC provides bench-marking services against BS11200: Crisis Management Guidance and Good Practice.
Crisis Management framework implementation
The starting point for implementing a robust crisis management process is not composing a plan.
In order for it to be accepted as the 'go to' mechanism for addressing extraordinary incidents, a foundation must first be laid comprising:
A clear policy, statement of objectives and accountabilities
The identification of required programme elements e.g. management response structure and accompanying procedures, 'war room' logistics and a training & exercising programme
A mechanism for review and improvement
ACBC strongly recommends that your Crisis Management Framework is aligned to BS11200: Crisis Management – Guidance and Good Practice
Crisis Management planning
Once a crisis management framework is in place, more detailed planning can be undertaken. ACBC can support the development of:
Crisis/Incident Team formulation - ensuring the management response tiers are structured and populated correctly according to their objectives and responsibilities
Crisis Management procedures - adhering always to the best-practice principles of accessibility, navigability and brevity
Crisis Logistics - the elements which facilitate the crisis management process e.g. emergency notification systems, 'war room' design, out-of-hours protocols
Crisis Management training & exercising
A vital component of robust crisis management planning, is validating and embedding arrangements with those charged to undertake them. ACBC delivers a wide range of training and exercising services including:
Crisis/Incident team scenario exercises - ranging from simple 'walk-throughs' through 'desktops' to sophisticated real-time simulation exercises
Crisis Leadership training - best practice disciplines and behaviours for those charged with coordinating their team's response
Information Management training - best practice guidance and tools for those charged with record-keeping and other administrative duties