Situation
Disaster preparedness took on a much higher priority at
large corporations following 9/11 and other subsequent terrorist
attacks and natural disasters around the world. Bellwether
received a grant to benchmark this with the primary objectives being to
examine the state of corporate preparedness, identify best practices
and enable companies to improve from each other. Eight
companies in financial services, technology, hardware, software,
healthcare, utilities and telecommunications participated in the study.
Approach
Bellwether performed primary and secondary research to
identify the key issues in risk assessment, corporate security,
emergency management and business continuity and ascertain the
information required of each of the participants. Data collection and
validation of findings were conducted through a detailed questionnaire,
structured interviews at each company and by a roundtable at which
observations concerning the state of corporate preparedness and future
initiatives were discussed. Indices for Preparedness Need and
Preparedness Capability were designed, populated using the data
collected and graphically presented to enable a meaningful comparison
of each participant irrespective of relative size and geographic
footprint.
Analysis
& Results
Collectively, the
participating companies represented
over $300 billion in revenues, 500,000 employees and 18,000 facilities
worldwide. They also had substantial experience with
disasters resulting in business disruption, including 9 counts of
terrorism, 32 natural disasters and 19 power outages, technological
failures and other incidents. As a result, all had made substantial
investments in disaster preparedness, although some relatively
recently. Investments had been made in system infrastructure,
facilities, equipment and supplies and in developing standard operating
procedures. Disaster needs and capabilities were generally closely
correlated across companies with a higher degree of variation apparent
at the functional level. Taken as a whole, these companies
were considered well prepared to cope with a disastrous event.
Benefits to Client
Although
the companies that participated in this study had all substantially
increased their preparedness, some corporate strategies were relatively
new and were still being implemented. In general,
preparedness functions were not as tightly integrated as they might be
and enterprise threat management is still emerging as a corporate
competency for some. The core value in this engagement lay in
the opportunity for each company to compare itself to the others at a
highly detailed level across all four key preparedness functions: risk
assessment, security and other preventative measures, crisis management
and business continuity. Each was able to identify
opportunities to improve their programs and solicit support to do so.
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