Prevention should drive your approach to incident- and crisis management

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Incident- and Crisis Management

In my earlier blog,  titled “Don’t Panic: Be Prepared”1,  I stated that Covid-19 is not a one-off challenge. We should expect additional phases to the current epidemic and additional epidemics in the future2.  The recommendation to handle the pandemic was to be proactive, prepare for the next crisis and integrate crisis management in corporate digital technological development and transformation.  History have shown that the recommendations were valid and are increasingly relevant.

We are experiencing an extraordinary situation, and this calls for new and extraordinary measures.  The focus for this article is the most recent recommendations for efficient incident- and crisis management, and reiteration of critical elements discussed in previous articles.

The recommendations are valid for any risk or issue that has the potential to evolve into an incident or crisis.

Seamless transition from day-to-day operations to crisis mode

Successful organisations integrate Crisis Management solutions into day-to-day operations for a seamless transition to crisis mode when needed3.  Focus is on prevention.

Integration of Crisis Management solutions into day-to-day operations strengthens the ability for early identification of risks and threats.  Early identification is a prerequisite for an organization to be able to defuse, mitigate and handle risks and threats, prevent it from evolving into a crisis, and ensuring organizational preparedness in the event that a crisis occurs.

The five key elements of efficient Incident- and Crisis Management

The integration of Crisis Management into day-to-day operations are one of five key elements that make up the basis for a robust incident and crisis management structure.

IntraPoint Crisis Manager supports the five key elements:

  1. INTEGRATE the solution into day-to-day operations to enable incident prevention
  2. SEAMLESS TRANSITION to Incident- and Crisis mode when needed
  3. The ability to PREPARE AND TRAIN the organization to handle any incident, emergency or crisis
  4. Efficiently MANAGE any incident, irrespective of type, magnitude or geographical range
  5. Secure COMPLIANCE with internal and external governance rules, industry standards and local and international laws and regulations

Figure-1 illustrates how the elements in this cyclic process ensures compliance, communication and continuous improvement of policies, plans and controls governing corporate crisis management. 

Crisis Manager by IntraPoint supports the cyclic process with functionality, features and modules for automation of the corporate Incident and Crisis Management Plan (I/CMP).  The following paragraphs focus on monitoring and prevention.

Operational Resiliency – continuous threat monitoring enables prevention

Traditional software for automating a corporate I/CMP is limited to supporting the “Prepare” and “Respond” part of the cyclic process, ref. figure 1.  This limits a corporation’s possibility to integrate crisis management into day to day operation, and its ability to effectively handle any risk and threat and prevent it from evolving into a crisis.

IntraPoint’s Crisis Manager is designed to support day-to-day activities, with seamless and coordinated transition to real-time response when needed.  It includes dashboards and functionality for communication, checklists, observations, execution of tasks and approval of actions.  Elements that are critical for continuous management and documentation of an operation.

Regular use of Crisis Manager in operation secures that the users are familiar with the solution and its functionality, and that all critical information is available in a transition from operation- to incident or crisis management.

Crisis Manager includes the Risk & Threat Dashboard module, which is linked to external information/data sources (IoT sources).  The Risk and Threat dashboard allows external information sources to be monitored and is configured to trigger automatic incident responses and reporting when defined thresholds and criteria are met or exceeded.  The Risk & Threat Dashboard allows real time risk & threat monitoring, prevention and handling.

The modules and functions described serves as examples of how the basis for incident and crisis management can be utilized to prevent risks and threats to evolve into an incident or crisis.  You must focus on prevention to drive your approach to incident and crisis management.

Key takeaways

  • In a COVID-19 perspective it is a priority for business leaders to establish Crisis Management3
  • Organisations are integrating Crisis Management solutions into day-to-day operations for a seamless cutover to crisis mode when needed4
  • Focus on prevention to drive your approach to incident and crisis management.

Coming blogpost

Knowledge- and Operation Management

Works Cited

  1. “Don’t Panic: Be Prepared”.  www.intrapoint.com , by Simen Karlstad VP IntraPoint Europe.
  2. “Lead Your Business Through the Coronavirus Crisis” Harvard Business Review, by Martin Reeves , Nikolaus Lang and Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, February 27, 2020.  Accessed 17. Mar.2020
  3. COVID -19. BCG Perspectives. Version: 1 May 2020.  Facts, scenarios, and actions for leaders. Publication #4 with a focus on Accelerating Digital & Technology Transformation.  Version: 1 May 2020
  4. GARTNER. Market Guide for Crisis/Emergency Management Solutions.  Published 19 August 2020 – ID G00724788
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