Business Preparedness: Best Practices
7 Steps to Protect Your Organization Against 21st Century
Threats
1. Conduct a threat assessment
Threat assessment
• Assess each office location separately:
– Geographical– Internal– External– Historical
2. Create emergency plans
Emergency plans
• Emergency response plan:
– Evacuation– Sheltering-in-place– Designation of roles & responsibilities– Turning off HVAC– Review building management’s plans – gaps?
Emergency plans
• Business continuity plan
– Minimum requirements for continuing operations
– Alternate work location / telework considerations
– Alternate vendors– Contact lists (employees, customers,
vendors)– Recovery strategy and responsibilities
Emergency plans
• Crisis communications plan
– Who is your designated media spokesperson?
– Who will communicate with employees and how?
– How will you update customers?– How will you proactively manage brand and
reputation?
3. Create a trained crisis team
Crisis team
• Define roles and responsibilities
• Choose suitable personnel
• Train:
– Protocols, e.g. Read, React, Recover– How to respond to a range of threats
4. Share access to critical plans
Shared document access
• Floor plans, emergency contact lists, BC plans and emergency response plans
• One central repository “in the cloud”
• Permissions-based access
5. Set up emergency notification system
Emergency notification system
• Incorporate more than one mode of communication
• Enable responses to be collected and sorted – who needs help?
• Ensure system can be deployed simply and quickly
• Keep contact information up to date
6. Practice regularly
Practice
• More than just an annual fire drill!
• Tabletops to assess response to different scenarios
• Office-wide shelter in place and evacuation drills
• Exercises and refreshers for crisis team members
7. Stay up to date
Stay up to date
• Preparedness is an ongoing exercise
• Keep abreast of current trends and threats
• Find expert sources of information you trust
• Review plans regularly
• Review threat assessment annually
Web based plus iPhone & Blackberry Access
iPhone
Emergency Contacts
iPhone
Your Company’s Crisis Plans
iPhone
Threat Response ProtocolsProtocols and information to help take action in a crisis situation.
iPhone
Stay or Go?
iPhone
Stay or Go?
iPhone
Stay or Go?
iPhone
Stay or Go?
Questions?