Business Continuity and Crisis Management

Abstract Business Continuity (BC) is happen to be a new term for Pakistan's E&P Industry. On the other hand, Crisis management (CM) is commonly coined term which is well understood in our circles. Both the terms converge for a bigger perspective. BC process ensures a resilient and secure business environment capable of enabling a quick and effective response to a crisis. At first, Health, Safety & Environment (HSE) professionals were asked to fabricate emergency response plans to protect staff and facilities in case of any unforeseen circumstances. These plans would highlight risks associated with current scenario and describe ways to protect organization and employees from any imminent threat. Long term impacts assessment and recovery plans were not the target. The modern age BC plans go beyond orthodox emergency and evacuation techniques. These plans are designed to the nature of operations and include all the aspects of the business. Professionals who have been given this task are expected to demonstrate long term thinking with clear vision. Latest BC plans contain procedures required to recover from critical functions to help get the business back to normal track in case crisis occurs. HSE professionals are no more working in isolation environments. They rather work as business partners and are involved in important decisions which may impact the business. BC Management is defined by the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) of UK as ‘holistic management process that identifies potential impacts capable of threatening an organization's integrity and provideing a framework for nurturing resilience and the capability for an effective response that protects the interests of its key stakeholders, reputation, brand and value creating activities’. Crisis Management is the method by which an organization tackle with a major event that threatens its operations. It works by identifying & rectifying the threats before, during, and after the crisis. Disaster Recovery Institute of USA defines Disaster recovery (DR) process as a set of policies and procedures enabling the recovery or continuation of vital technology infrastructure and systems following a natural or human-induced disaster. It is good for every organizations to have BC & CM capability for handling a crisis or disaster like situation for better corporate governance. A sophisticated, detailed and fit-for-purpose preparedness is required to have control over business environment. It describes the strategies and processes to plan for responding to significant business disruptions while reducing downtime and restoring business in limited time. Properly fabricated, implemented, and maintained system aids in responding to and recover from a unforeseen crisis. The long-term success of organization depends on ability to sustain operations through business cycles and build capacity to tackle unforeseen events such as natural and manufactured disasters. Organizations tend to put them at high risk if do not have a strategy for handling disasters from day 1. They may fail to stay in business owing to their loss of customers, commited staff, useful resources and inability to gatherinvestors’ confidence and their support. Business Continuity Plan tells the organizations how to act during disasters such as Floods, Earthquakes, Major Fire, Hazardous Material Release, Communication failures & Cyber-attacks, IT server failure, Civil unrest, Workplace Violence, Power Outages, Terrorism, Security Threats, Sabotage, Epidemic outbreak, System/Equipment failures, Disruption to Operations, Blockage of Transport Routes, or unavailability of critical spares which organizations usually underestimate can land them in serious troubles. Safety and well-being of personnel is considered top priority in the business atmosphere. Lack of planning may affect Personal Safety, Company Assets, Company Reputation, Brand image, and Stakeholders. Compensations and Litigation costs may get huge. Proactive approach of getting ready preventive measures ahead of time is easier, less costly, less tedious and more profitable than recovering from a crisis. A detailed Business Continuity Plan provides the foundation for successfully meeting corporate mission and allowing evaluation & readiness to respond any unforeseen events. Properly fabricated business continuity plan and crisis management mechanism helps recover the business in an organized manner with less time. Plans are critical to ensure operations continual even if some interruption pops up and resulting effect on employees, damage to assets, market reputation, and commercial viability is maintained to a minimum. This paper will illustrate as to how BC can be planned and executed successfully for maintaining smooth continuity of events. It will highlight the advantages of integrating Business Continuity Management into the Risk Management process. Potential threats are examined and effective strategies are put in place to ensure less impacts in case if anything goes wrong. Evolution of BC from emergency response/evacuation, crisis management and IT related disaster recovery in past few decades towards overall methodology of BC management in current times shall also be discussed for comprehensive understanding about the subject and its significance.