Risk Management and “George Costanza”
June 23, 2010
Many of our readers inform us that as risk management team members in their organization, communicating the concept of business continuity and/or risk management remains a constant challenge for them – i.e., to both fellow employees in their organization as well as to friends and associates, when telling them about what they do at work.
Our staff agrees that explaining risk management as a critical concept in the business continuity and/or organizational resiliency plan of their organization is an ongoing task that must be not only be communicated well but also must be continuously monitored and re-evaluated as risk environments can change very suddenly and without notice.
Whether you were simply promoted into your risk manager position, or you arrived in that position without any formal training – i.e. you got there by accident—this website would like to offer a lighter side to the seriousness of dealing with the subject of risk management. We ask our readers to view a YouTube video from an episode of Seinfeld addressing how George Costanza had to learn about risk management when working for the New York Yankees.
Hopefully, after viewing this video you may have a better understanding of the fact that for many people this Seinfeld episode was and still may be the only exposure they ever had to the risk management concept. We also would hope that this video clip will help you to gain more attention to the more serious subject of risk managment and in the end present an opportunity for risk managers to better address the critical importance that risk management plays in the resilience of organizations.
As a result of viewing the video, our readers may then want to go back and revisit those individuals whom they tried to educate before regarding risk management and now ask them the question “How much of “George Costanza” is still in them and their understanding and knowledge of risk management“?
Click here to view the complete video clip.
We do advise that this website cannot assume any responsibility for and violation of privacy issues received by our readers when linking to the YouTube website.
As always we welcome your thoughts and comments on this posting and we ask that you please pass this information along to those risk management team members in your organization.
Emergency Response Exercise to be Held in Chicagoland area
June 11, 2010
Emergency Response Exercise to be Held in Chicago area
On June 9th, a staff press release was issued on the Chicago Breaking News Center website announcing a massive emergency response exercise which could affect some of our readers and organizations located in the Chicagoland area.
In a related press release by the Illinois Army and Air National Guard, it was stated that “It is a full-scale exercise, so residents can expect to see emergency responders looking and acting as if this was a real homeland security/domestic response mission.”
The five-day training exercise will run from Sunday (June 13th) through Thursday, June 17), and will range in a variety of Chicagoland locations including suburban areas such as Oaklawn, Bridgeview, Bensenville – click here to read the full staff report.
If applicable, please pass this information along to all of the risk management, disaster planning and disaster recovery, and emergency response planning teams in your organization as well as any related community emergency response program team leaders or any individual associated with supporting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) PS-Prep program in the Chicagoland area.
Gartner Top End User Predictions for 2010
June 7, 2010
In a recent webinar, Brian Gammage of Gartner, Inc. presented the results of a Gartner report entitled, “Gartner Top End User Predictions for 2010: Coping with the New Balance of Power”.
We recommend our readers to become familiar with the information, trends, and predictions presented, because our staff sees a strong correlation between this information and the compliance and continuity management / planning challenges facing many organizations today and into the future.
A high level summary of Mr. Gammage’s slide presentation about Gartner’s 2010 predictions for the following major trends is presented as follows;
IT Ownership – By 2012, 20% of businesses will own no IT assets.
Cloud Computing – By 2012, India-centric IT service companies will represent 20% of the leading cloud aggregators in the market.
Social Computing – By 2012, Facebook will become the hub for social networking integration.
Sustainability (Green IT) – By 2012, 60% of a new PC’s total life greenhouse gas emissions will have occurred before the user first turns the machine on – and – by 2014, most IT business cases will include carbon remediation costs.
Internet Marketing – Internet marketing will be regulated by 2015, controlling more than $250 billion in Internet marketing spending worldwide.
Mobile Commerce – By 2015, context will be as influential to mobile consumer services and relationships as search engines are to the Web.
User Devices – By 2013, mobile phones will overtake PC’s as the most common Web access device worldwide.
Our website has often quoted materials, presentations and predictions from various members of Gartner, Inc. Our staff regards all of the information they present as important input to the decision processes of all business continuity, information technology security management, organizational resiliency and risk management team members.
Click here to see all of Brian Gammage’s webinar presentation slides and view more details and information about each of the major trends mentioned above.
Interactive Flood History Map of U.S. Now Available
March 17, 2010
With Spring season nearly upon us, floods are a real risk for many companies and a challenge for business continuity planners.
To mitigate this risk, both business continuity and risk management planners and/or consultants can help your company by performing an effective business impact analysis (BIA) of a flood impacting your business, and, hopefully develop and implement an effective proactive plan to minimize or mitigate potential losses from a flood actually happening and disrupting your business.
A good BIA analysis requires accurate and timely input of relevant data to be effective. It is for this reason that we make the suggestion that members of the business continuity and disaster recovery teams within their companies visit the FloodSmart.gov website.
This website is also the official site of the National Flood Insurance Program and is a great source of planning information regarding a variety of flood risk categories, such as:
What Causes Flooding
Defining Flood Risks
Understanding Flood Maps
Flood Risk Scenarios
The Cost of Flooding
And, More …….
The interactive map of historical flooding patterns on this website can also be a great resource for evaluating potential trends into the future regarding this flood risk and your company’s location(s).
Remember to put this website into your company’s risk library of resources.
Risk Management Remains Key to Supply Chain Success
March 15, 2010
The accounting and consulting firm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, recently released its latest annual CEO survey report and can be viewed by clicking here.
Along with business continuity and risk management teams, we believe it is also good for supply chain managers and executives to have at least a good feeling of where the CEO of their organization sits regarding their support when it comes to business continuity, risk and supply chain management. This survey helps to better understand what the average CEO is thinking about relative to these critical areas of organizational risk.
CEOs, not unexpectedly, have many business concerns, a number of them supply chain related. And, to no one’s surprise, reducing operating costs remains the number 1 initiative on the CEO’s plate.
The report cites at least the following other major categories of concern:
- Energy Costs: 54% in 2010 versus 50% in 2009
- Potential Protectionism as a Barrier to Trade: 49% in 2010 versus 39% in 2009
- Climate Change Issues: 37% in 2010 versus 26% in 2009
- Scarcity of Commodities: 35% in 2010 versus 30% in 2009
- Supply Chain Security: 35% in 2010 versus 33% in 2009
If your organization is facing some critical strategic decisions this year regarding outsourcing and supply chain management issues, then we recommend for you to not only read the entire survey report, but also view a good synopsis of the highlights of the report, written by the Supply Chain Digest editorial staff and available for viewing by clicking here.
All of this information should also be added to your organization’s in-house reference library for future use.
Effective Crisis Leadership Requires Resilient Attitude
January 28, 2010
While business continuity, information security and risk management planning groups in organizations evaluate, implement and review crisis management plans regularly– some more effective and successful than others – the fact remains that when your organization is faced with an actual crisis, strong resilient leadership is what will help those teams to deliver the objectives of your emergency management plans, compliance policies and procedures.
That topic was recently addressed very effectively in an article written by Leonard Kloeber and posted on the http://ezinearticles.com/.
Mr. Kloeber states that “…whatever challenges faced in striving for success, you need to be able to deal with setbacks and difficulties when they arise. This ability to overcome obstacles is called resilience. And whenever your organization runs into trouble, the rest of the team looks to the leader.”
When faced with a crisis, the need for this leadership resiliency is critical and necessary. Mr. Kloeber offers the following tips for crisis management team leaders: (a) change your thinking; (2) prepare for the unexpected and (3) practice for the unexpected.
This website recommends that you read this article for more details and suggested ways to help guarantee that your organization will have the resilient leadership to address and resolve any potential crisis to your organization.
As always, we welcome your comments and additional input to help our readers gain maximum benefit from this information.
Recent Study Finds Many Firms Unprepared for Potential H1N1 Influenza Outbreak
December 23, 2009
Deb Ladendorf, a contributing writer for this website, recently spotted an interesting article by Jeff Casale regarding some recent findings in a study done by Mercer L.L.C. on how employers are handling the challenges of the H1N1 influenza virus to date.
Many of our readers are members of business continuity and risk management teams in their organizations, and, hopefully, in this article, those members with particular contingency planning responsibilities will find value in reading about the results of this study. The survey for the study included responses from nearly 1,000 organizations of all sizes in the United States, Latin America, Canada, Asia and Europe.
As an example, it was stated in the study that half of the respondents have local contingency plans in place, but only 25% of those respondents have integrated contingency plans in the event of an outbreak.
CLICK HERE to read more about this study as posted in the Business Insurance website, and hopefully, some of this information will help you improve your own H1N1 Influenza Contingency Plan(s).
World Conference on Disaster Management Calls for Papers
October 31, 2009
The 20th World Conference on Disaster Management (WCDM) will be held in Toronto, Canada from June 20-23, 2010. This event is regarded as the premier annual conference to attend if you want to hear all of the major global issues common to every aspect of disaster and/or emergency management. Currently the management of this WCDM Summit Series Conference is soliciting writers and abstracts for consideration to be presented and discussed at this conference.
This call for papers requires that all abstracts be submitted by December 6, 2009 and should fit into one of the following six (6) main topic areas: (1) Real Events / Lessons Learned, (2) Emerging Trends in Disaster Management, (3) The Human Element in Disaster Management, (4) Technical Issues/Threats, (5) Disaster Management Principles & Practices and (6) Research and Development.
Perhaps there are individuals within your organization, who are charged with responsibilities regarding disaster management, and, who would like to submit their thoughts in writing regarding related subjects such as: Community Emergency Response Programs, Emergency Risk Management, Crisis Communications, Emergency Site Management, Evacuation Planning, Trauma Risk Management, Organizational and Community Resilience, Exercise and Training Programs, Personal Preparedness & Pandemic Planning, Cyber & Electronic Data Security, or Virtualization and Cloud Computing as related to your company’s Disaster Recovery capabilities.
To get more information and details about this important conference and to view all of the abstract submission requirements : Click Here.
ISO 28002 – What’s The Buzz About?
October 20, 2009
Never heard of ISO 28002? A lot of people haven’t. But it seems like every security and continuity conference lately has a session or two on what it is and why it’s important. Is this just hype or the foundation of new requirements for companies that exist within the global and/or domestic supply chain.
Although it isn’t yet published, it has the potential to cause you to sit up and take notice if your company is part of a supply chain. ‘ISO 28002 – Resilience in the Supply Chain’ is currently being developed. Significant input to the standard is being provided by the Supply Chain Risk Leadership Council. This council is made up of many corporate household names like: CISCO, Boeing, GE and others. It is currently being reviewed by ISO Technical Committee 8 and being represented there by ASIS International, which is not only a leader in the world of security, but is a standard’s writing body which recently released through ANSI, ASIS SPC.1 Organizational Resiliency Management Systems Standard.
Why is this standard being developed? Nobody argues that that threat of a disruption occurring in the supply chain is a rising threat. Just-in-time manufacturing, outsourcing and global sourcing, as well as, specialized factories and materials requirements increase the volatility of supply and demand in the marketplace. Companies, especially those at the top of the supply chain are looking for ways to standardize an approach with their suppliers. They want to take the ambiguity out of not only what it takes for a company to be resilient but also to provide the companies in their supply chain with a standard framework from which to comply with best practices.
Below are a couple of links which offer valuable insight on ISO 28002 and what it might mean to your organization.
http://www.scrlc.com/newsletter-readMore.php?aID=212
http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2009DIBCIP/SiegelSupplyChainPanel.pdf
Supply Chain Risk Leadership Council – What Is It and Why Should I Know About It?
October 19, 2009
The Supply Chain Risk Leadership Council is a group of companies that meet four times a year to discuss how to incorporate standardized best practices into their supply chain. Some of the companies that sit on the council are industry heavyweights, such as CISCO, GE, Boeing, Coca-Cola, Merck and FedEx.
Their mission as stated on their website http://www.scrlc.com/ is to: “Work together to create best-practice supply chain risk management standards, processes, capabilities and metrics to be adopted within our respective organizations. Leverage this best practices effort to proactively initiate consistency across industries and their related organizations / councils. Enable standardizations across industries where applicable and become “industry integrators” for the betterment of a more efficient and consistent risk management environment.”
In order to accomplish this effort, many of the member organizations are embracing the ISO 28000 Family of Standards. This group of standards specifically revolves around the supply chain. ISO 28001 deals with security in the supply chain.
They have a newsletter that anyone can subscribe to which keeps you abreast of what they are talking about.
You may ask, ‘Why do I need to know about this ongoing effort?’
If your company is a part of any of the large enterprise corporate supply chains, then, you need to keep abreast of developments with this group. They will be setting the standards that you will eventually need to follow to continue to be a trusted supplier of these organizations. Whether you will be required to become compliant or certify to additional standards, knowing what they are and how this group is implementing them, may be your next competitive advantage.
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