Specialist Services
For niche industry solutions
With our extensive global BCM experience, we can specialise in a range of niche industry specific services to meet your exacting requirements
At a glance
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FMCG Product Recall
Prepare, test, and maintain plans to protect your brand
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Loss of Critical Technology
Prepare your P1 technical and management crisis responses, and implement alternative methods to keep your business running
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Stakeholder Crisis Communications
Develop strategies, analyse stakeholder channels and requirements,, structure and train / rehearse the team
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Loss of a critical facility
Plan, prepare, and test how to recover from the loss of your operational hub
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Industrial Process Failure
Implement strategies to respond to and recover from the failure of a critical section of a complex industrial process
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Electricity Network Disaster
Stress test your response to a major storm, flood, earthquake, bush fire or loss of real-time systems (SCADA)
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Civil Defence Disasters
Prepare and rehearse lead Government agencies and support organisations, and assist businesses to respond to the impacts
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Pandemic
How to respond to pandemic impacts, supply chain disruption, and the loss of a critical supplier
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Serious Accident / Fatality
Implement preparations and drill test how to respond to a sudden accident
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SME BCM Solutions
Implement a simple, robust, and cost-effective, capability for a smaller business with limited resources
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BCM Contract Compliance
Provide independent expert assurance and certification that contractual BCM requirements exist
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Critical Supplier BCM Verification
Evaluate BCM for critical suppliers to identify failure scenarios
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Airport Air Crash Test
Plan and facilitate effective air crash test exercises with multiple agencies to meet the Part 139 Civil Aviation Rules
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ISPS Port Security Plan
Keep the emergency and crisis response teams match-fit while maintaining the rigorous plan security requirements
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Active Shooter / Terrorist
Plan, prepare and drill rehearse your response to a sudden act of violence.
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Politics and Social Media
Prepare for both individual and organisation-level, sustained, and high-profile attacks
FMCG Product Recall
Prepare, test / maintain plans to protect your brand
Product recalls are expensive and can destroy your brand, reputation, consumer trust and goodwill if not planned and managed correctly. Most organisations apply a linear process to manage a simple recall caused by an accidental physical contaminant introduced during the manufacturing process.
Now consider the potential for acute consumer health and safety exposures, actual harm / sickness, high profile media coverage and combine that with an unknown cause, slow testing processes, track and trace problems, difficulties identifying and ring-fencing affected product, inadequate / no insurance and the potential complexity of deliberate product tampering with a credible extortion threat.
We specialise in developing enhanced product recall plans that provide a comprehensive capability to addresses a full range of plausible worst-case scenarios, to effectively integrate operations with the crisis management team.ts
Loss of Critical Technology
P1 technical, crisis response, and contunity plans
How dependent are your operations to continued Internet access, website, email, management systems, SCADA / process control, voice communications, access security systems, security / CCTV and building management?
Are you prepared for loss of a critical technology facility / site? hardware damage / failure? Loss / corruption of data? novel fast-moving virus with destructive payload? ransomware lock-out? communications failure / cable cutting? remote access to operational / building systems?
If the problem is common to other organisations, the required expertise to fix the problem may be scarce. Fixing could be complex and time consuming. Complications could include extortion – would you know what to do? Do you have adequate insurance? Does it cover business interruption?
We can help develop emergency plans for immediate responses, crisis plans to coordinate the incident and recovery, business continuity plans (BCP) for loss of technology workarounds during the downtime, and supporting technology disaster recovery plans (DRP) to fix the problems.
Stakeholder Crisis Communications
Strategies, stakeholder analysis and team training
When a crisis occurs there’s often little, if any, warning. There’s immense pressure to quickly release clear communications to respond to interested parties and address stakeholder concerns.
You need to clearly understand your internal and external stakeholder community, have ready access to their details, understand their expectations of your organisation and know the methods of communicating with them.
We can help you to ensure your crisis communications team is well organised, structured, has clear roles, is match fit / rehearsed and has adequate preparations to speed up the process.
This includes:
• A crisis communications plan
• A well-defined communications team structure
• Stakeholder analysis
• Contact details
• Proforma messages
The documentation format is critical.
Bland template-based documents only pass audit scrutiny and satisfy compliance requirements. They don’t work in practice.
We produce plans that are 100% practical and ensure the communications team is committed, skilled, rehearsed and match-fit to use it.
Matthew’s work includes a unique approach to both internal and external stakeholder communications to integrate the functions with the emergency management, crisis management and business / technology recovery structures. This includes a robust governance structure, comprehensive policy, suitable resourcing, and a clear stakeholder analysis to identify prioritisation, expectations, ownership, channels, and supporting collateral. The implementation approach uses media training, drills and simulations to improve and maintain the protection of brand, image and reputation
Loss of a critical facility
Plan, prepare, and test the recovery strategies
What is your most important site / location? Is it your control room / tower, head office, production / manufacturing site, bulk storage warehouse / distribution centre, postal high-speed sorting centre, bottling plant, laboratory, call centre, communications exchange building, oil / chemical / milk / water / wastewater processing plant, access point (runway, port channel, key road / rail link)?
Now, can you keep operating without that location for a prolonged period? Can you recover from the loss of all contents? Too many eggs in one basket?
We help management to understand the full impact of losing a critical location and how to respond to / recover from the loss under realistic worst-case conditions and develop strategies / plans how to respond.
Industrial Process Failure
Alternate strategies for industrial process failure
Industrial manufacturing mostly starts with raw materials inducted into a series of processes that produce finished goods. Each part of the supply chain and manufacturing processes relies heavily on the transport / induction of key supplies, the means of production / process (plant, equipment, energy, people, overall control and storage) and the storage / transport of finished goods.
We help to develop / plan how to respond to and recover from the prolonged breakdown / loss (regardless of cause) of each key step / resource in the end-to-end processes, including proactive measures to improve diversity of supply, alternate enablers, backup supply, buffer stocks etc.
Electricity Network Disaster
Test storm, flood, earthquake, SCADA loss plans
Are you prepared for managing widespread significant network damage from a severe storm, earthquake, flood or bushfire? Consider workplace / public safety, patrolling and recording damage, making safe, restoration priorities, mutual aid support, reliance on contractors, costs / insurance and management control.
Have you really stress-tested your major event planning using a worst-case scenario? Can you cope if your SCADA systems were also unavailable? Do you prioritise restoration by numbers? Or do you know your critical consumers beyond the obvious ones?
We help electricity lines companies to be fully prepared for their worst-case scenario including testing the senior management team and support contractors and preparing the response strategies
Civil Defence Disasters
Prepare lead and support agencies and businesses
The impacts can be severe, including many casualties, loss of premises / contents, lifelines utility failure, staff unable to work / distracted / stressed, lost transport links, business partner failure and a scarcity of critical services / resources.
Can you establish remote management control? Adequate policies for staff welfare? All your eggs in one basket / one location? Systems resilience?
We can assist to plan, implement and test your response to the operational impacts and / or your sudden need to ramp up operations to meet a peak of activity.
Pandemic
Respond to direct impacts and supply chain
The global impacts of Covid-19, SARS and MERS put virtually every organisation to the test, some more than others. Internally, organisations had to cope with lock-down, site closures, working from home and prolonged business interruption. Some experienced disruption to their supply chain and the loss of external outsourced service providers.
Essential services had to continue but needed to rapidly adapt operations to cater for social distancing and rigorous cleaning routines to protect people.
Having emerged from this major global crisis, we can help to debrief your teams to capture the learnings, report on the outcomes and roll the improvements into new plans and resilience initiatives in readiness for the next pandemic event.
Serious Accident / Fatality
Implement accident plans and drill test
Accidents do happen. Accidents will happen.
Bus crash, truck crash, ship grounding / sinking, ferry collision, train derailment, amusement park accident, a fire / DG spillage in a tunnel causing death, injuries, publicity, facility closure, operational blockage and a lengthy high-profile investigation.
Are your statutory minimum drills adequate? Have you considered the broader crisis around the emergency response to return to normal? How about complexities that can elevate the incident to a leading news story, such as a school bus crash? mechanical failure? human error? procedural errors?
We help to prepare all levels of personnel for their worst nightmare scenario to ensure they are match fit and ready. This includes front line drivers / pilots / captains / operators to the supporting operations / controllers up to senior executives.
SME BCM Solutions
Affordable BCM for clients with limited resources
Small to medium enterprises face a unique BCM problem. They have the same, if not worse, risk profile as their larger-scale counterparts, but lack the resilience in facilities, resources, and management team size to cope with the impacts. Many simply rely on insurance and keep their fingers crossed.
Most disaster incidents can cause an SME to completely fail, lose significant market share and value, and be extremely stressful to manage, including the loss of a critical facility, loss of IT systems / cyber-attack, loss of a critical supplier / service provider / customer, complex product faults / contamination, a serious workplace accident / fatality, Civil Defence emergency or pandemic.
We have developed a customised scaled-down BCM capability that provides effective coverage for SMEs so you can cope with responding to and recovering from any of your worst nightmare scenarios.
We use our tried and disaster-proven solutions / templates and utilise your internal resources to keep our service at an affordable cost.
BCM Contract Compliance
Independent expert assurance and certification
Many customers recognise that they can outsource functions, like 3PLs, contact centres, transport etc., but they cannot outsource the associated risks. In response, customers now demand that suppliers sign off contract clauses that they have an effective BCM capability that ensures continuity of supply.
However, the suppliers often don’t understand what is required of an effective BCM, they sign the contract regardless and customers don’t know how to check compliance with their requirement. The void in understanding and lack of independent expert verification creates a significant risk exposure.
Customers
As a customer, we can act on your behalf to effectively audit all your key suppliers’ true BCM capability and report back on the failure scenarios and risks. This can be coupled with advice on your internal processes to either mitigate the risk or implement appropriate supplier failure scenario solutions.
Suppliers
As a supplier, we can assist you to develop / implement an effective BCM capability to meet your main contractual requirements.
We can then provide formal certification / an opinion for substantiating your legal declaration in customer contracts. This avoids potential breach of contract / liabilities.
Critical Supplier BCM Verification
Audit suppliers’ BCM to identify failure scenarios
Outsourcing critical functions such as 3PL warehousing, call centres, transport, and IT systems operations can save costs, but you still own the risk. Out of sight is not out of mind and a sudden supplier failure can seriously impact your own operations confronting you with either in-sourcing the function or finding an alternative provider and inducting them at short notice.
We recommend:
• Independent review of critical suppliers’ BCM capability
• Specify strengths and failure scenarios and consequences
Customer call centre support, raw materials supply, IT systems monitoring / operations / troubleshooting, manufacturing, accounting, research, 3PL warehousing / transport and professional services.
It may save costs and streamline your operations, but you still own the risk, that cannot be outsourced. Out of sight should not mean out of mind. Their problem will become your problem.
Are 3rd parties reliable? Can you bring the functions in-house if they fail? How important a customer are you to them?
Most organisations rely heavily on key third parties to provide products and services to keep their own critical functions and operations running smoothly. While there are obvious benefits, it exposes the organisation to a range of new risks, many of which are unknown or out of management’s sphere of control.
A sudden third-party failure can seriously impact your own operations confronting you with either in-sourcing the function or finding an alternative provider and inducting them at short notice.
We recommend:
• Identify key suppliers / service providers
• Analyse the impacts if they stop functioning
• Independently assess key suppliers / service providers’ BCM capability to determine failure scenarios and their ability to manage the crisis and recover quickly
• Develop plans to rapidly in-source functions
• Identify alternate suppliers / service providers
• Develop plans to continue operations without the third-party support
Airport Air Crash Test
Facilitate effective air crash test exercises with multiple agencies to meet the Part 139 Civil Aviation Rules
Part 139 of the Civil Aviation Rules requires aerodromes, in conjunction with the emergency service agencies, to conduct a full hands-on test of their air crash response every second year.
Our experience includes air crash test end to end planning, briefing, facilitating and reporting, working closely with senior Police personnel and heads of each agency. We also have in-depth disaster-proven airport BCM / crisis management experience. As a very time-consuming task, do you need assistance in leading the management of your next air crash test or interim exercise? Engage us to facilitate this process with genuine confidence.
ISPS Port Security Plan
Keep teams match-fit and the plan secure
In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the IMO required ports to establish a set of measures to protect facilities and ships to address the perceived risks. Being a sensitive document, it is only disclosed to those who need to know and is kept secure at all times, creating opposing objectives of having trained personnel that are match fit at short notice.
Our unrivalled global ports experience allows us to effectively train up key internal staff, contractors and external agencies using customised simulation exercises combined with on the ground drill exercises and technical training. This helps to meet the training and awareness requirements while meeting the confidentiality / non-disclosure constraints.
Active Shooter / Terrorist
Prepare your response to a sudden act of violence
It could be an active shooter, lone wolf gunman, gang attack, violent robbery attempt, disaffected ex-staff, dissatisfied customer / client / member of the public, estranged partner of a staff member (common) or a terrorist.
Have you thought about how you respond to an act of violence? Do your operations attract disaffected people? Are reception staff adequately protected? Is the emergency response well-rehearsed / tested? Is your school lockdown really effective? Do you know your legal limits to defend yourself / others? Do you have adequate technology such as duress alarm systems? tested procedures? do you understand the Police responses? and how this changes if it is a terrorist?
We help develop implement and test responses to acts of violence including how your organisation needs to interact with others, their expectations, your powers and rights and to implement and maintained the measures.
Whether at a crowded arena, in a train station, at an airport terminal, in a crowded night club area, at a place of worship, at a school, it will happen suddenly with little or no warning, with devastating impact and instant and persistent international high-profile media attention.
We can help you develop your terrorism response do deal with the many complexities, to carefully plan and to provide regular rehearsals to keep all operational and management teams match-fit and ready to deploy at a moment’s notice.
Politics and Social Media
Individual and organisation-level sustained attack
Disaffected people are free to protest, however, a mob mentality can cause a peaceful protest to become violent. If this happens outside your premises are you ready for the potential problems? the impact to your staff and clients / customers? Loss of access? Controversial social media coverage?
Does your organisation / operations, or a shared tenant in your building, attract disaffected people? Are reception staff adequately protected? Is an emergency response to loss of building access or building invasion? Do you know your legal limits to defend yourself / others and protect property? Do you have tested procedures? do you understand the emergency services response?
We help develop implement and test responses to acts of violence including how your organisation needs to interact with others, their expectations, your powers and rights and to implement and maintained the measures.