Business Preparedness: Best Practices 7 Steps to Protect Your Organization Against 21 st 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 Protocols Protocols 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?