The Crisis Management Plan forms an element of enterprise resilience in terms of preparing companies for a possible series of crisis events prior to an emergency occurring. Using pre-defined tools and systems developed during the contingency planning period these plans empower and support managers in dealing effectively with the aftereffects of a crisis - allowing business continuity or recovery to occur more expeditiously. Effective crisis management planning will safeguard the health and well being of personnel, protect business activities and resources, and demonstrate good corporate governance.

A crisis situation may impact every aspect of an organization, from the office workers to the corporate board. It may involve incident management through to full scale crisis management and is often managed initially by inexperienced staff as more experienced crisis managers mobilize to meet the challenges an emergency may present to a group. The scope, complexity and skill sets and experience of responding parties should be considered when developing a corporate crisis management strategy.

Each company will define the composition and structure of its own crisis response group dependant on the nature, size and scope of their organization, as well as the operating regions and risk types they are exposed to. The tiering of response groups creates an effective command and control chain that meets both corporate and field requirements, as well as reflecting the size and complexity of response needs. As such, four basic layers might be found within a typical crisis response organizational structure: the corporate, country, program and project crisis response groups. Companies should also consider the different response layers within a typical crisis scenario in order to ensure a Crisis Management Plan best reflects the varying levels of experience, training and capability of those who will be involved with a crisis, such as the:

• First Responder: The non specialist, typically the first on scene instigating the crisis response and starting the information flow within the organization.

• Source Incident Response Team: A trained local incident control team, either first on site or in close proximity bringing control to the crisis event.

• Project Incident Response Team: A trained incident response manager or team who takes ownership of gathering information and controlling the crisis event.

• Program Crisis Response Team: A senior trained incident manager or team managing multiple crisis events and mobilizing local outsourced support, bridging the gap between incident management and crisis management.

• Country Crisis Response Team: Supporting the control in strategic terms, while also undertaking peripheral crisis management functions and mobilizing in-country resources and outsourced support.

• Corporate Crisis Response Team: Dealing with strategic needs and issues for the company as a whole, sanctioning procurements, handling public relations issues and leveraging resources.

RSM Consulting will support companies in designing and developing both Incident Management Plans to support immediate response needs to a crisis, and the more strategic crisis management policies, plans and procedures, ensuring that full group resources are quickly brought to bear to meet fluid challenges but will ensure and that external agencies and groups are leveraged to augment company resources. We offer a tier of crisis management policy design services to meet small linear tasks, medium sized projects and complex and dynamic risk consulting requirements. Each service can be tailored to meet the needs of a unique company requirement.