Combat, Survive, and Recover with Crisis Management

By Christopher Armas

Crisis Management is a complex, yet vital business process most commonly overlooked by businesses from small size to global corporate entities. In this issue, I will provide an introductory view of what crisis management really is, how it differs from business continuity, and why it is a crucial component needed for business and employee survival.

Business Continuity vs. Crisis Management

Throughout my career, I have found business men and women looking at me with blank stares when the topic of crisis management is brought up. Most business professionals understand the core concepts of business continuity: the process of identifying and planning vital business functions and properly responding to identifiable natural or man-made incidents, needed for a business to combat, survive, and recover. Major subset components include: Information Technology, Work Area Recovery, Document Management, Change Management, and Disaster Recovery. Crisis management eludes the majority or is consistently confused with business continuity; however, they are very different and distinct disciplines.

Over the years when speaking about crisis management, I have learned to begin with how I define crisis management: The process of identifying a business’s weaknesses, threats, and strengths, with the development of a strategic response plan to prevent, effectively respond, and quickly recover from a critical incident involving human life that allows management and employees to swiftly implement their business continuity plan. Crisis management is planning for the unexpected critical incidents or making response plans to fill the voids in business continuity plans. A crisis can be any event that causes harm to your employees, facilities, finances, or reputation, from an active shooter impacting your business to the loss of electricity. Business continuity is the advanced planning and implementation of systems and procedures to sustain normal business operations.

Still Confused…

This is a common problem stemming across the public and private sectors. The terms crisis management, disaster recovery, and business continuity are endlessly tossed around, resulting in a majority of business owners and executives having difficulty discerning one from the other. The biggest example of this is seen with IT companies advertising business continuity planning that solely addresses data redundancy. Data redundancy is not, as a stand-alone, a business continuity plan, rather a process within a continuity plan.

When thinking of business continuity in relation to a tornado, one must refer to it as the pre-planned processes developed, implemented, and tested to sustain business process functions after the disaster. Crisis management fills the voids. For example, in your business continuity planning you outsourced data redundancy to a data facility in another state, you planned and established a secondary workplace in case your office building is destroyed, and you developed a HAZMAT plan in case the anhydrous ammonia tanks behind the business are damaged and leak.

However, when the EF-5 tornado strikes, it hits during a seminar you are hosting with employees, clients, and vendor representatives present at your facility. The EF-5 tornado destroys your town leaving the emergency operations center, fire departments, police department - and your business - in rubbles. What do you do; how do you react? This is when a crisis management plan is critical. As ironic as it sounds, as mentioned earlier, a crisis management plan is planning for the unexpected, such as having employees, clients, and vendor representatives onsite. Focusing mostly on human life, crisis management could be the deciding factor in whether your business continuity plan is even going to matter.

Why is Crisis Management a Crucial Component for Business Survival?

I have found countless business owners rely upon their business continuity plan, believing it will save their businesses. This could not be further from the truth. The fact is, no plan is an absolute guarantee; but without having a plan to get employees out of harm’s way and then utilizing a streamlined process to ensure employees are at the right place at the right time (crisis management plan), a business continuity plan is useless.

A crisis communication plan cannot be initiated without staff present to call customers, vendors, and partners. A disaster recovery plan cannot be initiated without management present to identify what is lost or recoverable from its department. Business owners forget their staff ensures the continuity of their business. In a corporation of three hundred employees, it would be literally impossible for the CEO to handle every aspect needed to rapidly meet company, customer, and partner demands. If customer contracts are lost due to a company failing to meet customers’ needs, income to meet overhead demands will drive the business into the ground. In a period of recession, there is no margin for error. Competition is fierce and customers’ demands are high, but their willingness to spend is low and budgeting is crucial.

No matter how committed a client is to a business, if the business is unprepared for a critical incident and forced to temporarily shut its doors, even the most devout of clients will turn to the next provider. It is a vicious cycle and one from which a company must be prepared to combat, survive and recover.

About the Author
Christopher S. Armas is CEO/co-founder of Verity Business Solutions, a managed services provider and crisis management consulting firm. Verity’s business continuity, disaster recovery, and crisismanagement programs provide business owners, executives, and employees with peace of mind, through a suite of total solutions. The Verity Disaster Recovery User’s Manual (DRUMO) is a comprehensive guide that streamlines the continuity process, from Active Shooter Emergency Response Plans (ASERP), to identifying drug and alcohol abuse in the workplace. Verity offers an array of programs in one simplified solution in the Southeastern United States. Verity is the only provider in Florida offering active shooter response planning and training.Find us on the web @ www.veritymsp.com or email us @ info@veritymsp.com, by phone, local (813) 996-5400 or
(877) 9VERITY.