Risk and Crisis Management

 

INTRODUCTION

   Risk and Crisis Management deal with threats to organizations.  The organizations mitigate threats by applying management programs. Risk Management deals with threats prior to the event occurring while crisis management deals with threats when it unfolds or after the event occurs.  Crisis examples would be natural occurrences, faulty equipment, human error, conflicts, intentional efforts, and imperfect leaderships. (Department of Homeland Security, 2009) (Shrivastava and Miglani, 1988)

     For this assignment, it will discuss following: the difference between risk and crisis management and the role of the National Response Framework (NRF) and the National Incident Management System (NIMS) plays, do I consider crisis management a part of risk management, and describe the possible types of crisis faced by my organization and which is important to be prepared for and why.

RISK AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT

     The definitions of Risk and Crisis Management do vary, but generally the two deal with how organizations plan, prepare, and mitigate. Crisis Management is processes that are allocated to manage unexpected incidents that threat organizations, operations, and individual or group of people. (Australian Government, 2010) A crisis does happen without warnings and it is utmost important that plans are in place to be able to execute quickly (reactive) such actions to remedy situations or decrease the impact of a crisis to reestablish normality. Risk Management is a continuous process which threats are emphasized and solutions are in place to mitigate or avoid the risks (proactive). No matter how well prepared the procedures are for risk management, a requirement for any organizations or groups need to have a crisis management plan in place. (Australian Government, 2010)

     The NRF’s role to crisis and risk management is providing the guidance for the Nation to all responses to occurrences and it is created upon scalable, flexible, and adaptable coordinating structures to associate roles and responsibilities. Furthermore, it gives the authorities and best customs for managing incidents or occurrences (Policy for Crisis Management). (Department of Homeland Security, 2009, 2013, and 2015) For NRF to support the role of crisis and risk management, it is comprised of core documents, the Emergency Support Functions (ESF), Support and Incident Annexes, and Partner Guides. The core documents discuss the responses, roles, and responsibilities for our nation to include response actions, organizations, and planning requirements. (Department of Homeland Security, 2009, 2013, and 2015) The ESF is the resources and abilities from Federal and State that are functional areas that are needed for a response such as Transportation, Law Enforcements, Mass Care, and Firefighting to name a few. Support Annexes are the essential support aspects that are common to occurrences or incidents such as Financial Management and Coordination from private sectors. The Incident Annexes are the aspects how to respond to incident categories such as Biological, Nuclear, Radiological, Cyber, and Mass Evacuation. Lastly, the Partner Guides give the references to discuss the key roles and actions for Local, Tribal, State, Federal, and Private-Sector response teams. (Department of Homeland Security, 2009, 2013, and 2015)

     The NIMS works hand in hand with the NRF. NIMS’ role in crisis and risk management is to give the guidance for command and management structures of incidents to organizations or people. It provides the methodical and proactive tactics at all levels of governments to include private sectors to work efficiently to prevent, protect, respond, recover, and mitigate incidents or occurrences no matter the cause, location, size, and the complexity. (Department of Homeland Security, 2008 and 2009) (FEMA, 2013 and 2016)

     The question to think about is crisis management a part of risk management. A good risk management process minimizes loss when occurrences arise.  A good crisis management is essential, but it should not be replaced for risk management processes. Regardless having a robust risk management process, occurrences or crisis will happen and cannot be predicted. The preparation to deal with and act immediately is essential when it comes to the two being a part of each other (plan, prepare, and mitigate). (Department of Homeland Security, 2009) (FEMA, 2013) (James and James, 2008) A good structure for risk and crisis management process maximizes the ability to act and minimizes losses. Crisis and Risk Management would discipline a broader context of management for identifying, assessing, understanding, and coping with the occurrences.  Additionally, they would influence the preventing, alleviating, and overcoming different types of crisis. In the end, risk management assesses the threat levels and allows for ways to avoid the potential threats. Crisis Management deals with threats prior, during, and after the occurrence. (Australian Government, 2010) (Department of Homeland Security, 2009) (FEMA, 2013)

TYPES OF CRISIS IN MY ORGANIZATION

     Crises in telecommunication organizations arise all the time. Telecommunications have four threats associated such as compliance, operational, strategic, and financial threats. Compliance deals with the laws, regulations and corporate governance. Operational is the impacts on the processes, systems, and people to include the overall value of the organization. Strategic relates to our customers and investors to include competitors.  Lastly, Financial is the instability to keep up with technology, fixing hardware failures, updates on software and have the proper training for the employees. (EY, 2014) (MSG, 2017) The threats have crisis’s that are underlined.  The number one crisis is the new roles of involving industry ecosystems. The realization and understanding the importance of the new growth opportunities, customer satisfaction, and competitors to keep up with technology is a big issue and it is the driver in today’s digital world (new technologies).  The Compliance threat has crisis’s dealing with controlling new structures and essentials in privacy and security.  Additionally, the mentioned would be the second importance in a telecommunication organization. The obedience with policy and security is not regulated to protect our data. It is the reason we have the breaches in our ecosystems. (EY, 2014) (MSG, 2017) The crises in Operation threats have organizational agility especially dealing with diverse ecosystems and fostering innovation. Furthermore, the issues with data integrity to drive growth and efficiency including performance measurements. The crises in Strategic threats have customer satisfaction issues, new services available, and simplicity and flexibility to include adopting new innovation methods to improve the networks (ecosystems). The crises in financial is always going to be dealing with competitors with new technologies to improve the heterogeneous network landscape for the diverse networks. (EY, 2014) (MSG, 2017)

CONCLUSION

   Risk and Crisis Management deals with threats to organizations.  The organizations mitigate threats by applying management programs. Risk Management deals with threats prior to the event occurring while crisis management deals with threats when it unfolds or after the event occurs.  Crisis examples would be natural occurrences, faulty equipment, human error, conflicts, intentional efforts, and imperfect leaderships. (Department of Homeland Security, 2009) (Shrivastava and Miglani, 1988)

     The NRF’s role to crisis and risk management is providing the guidance for the Nation to all responses to occurrences and it is created upon scalable, flexible, and adaptable coordinating structures to associate roles and responsibilities. Furthermore, it gives the authorities and best customs for managing incidents or occurrences (Policy for Crisis Management). For NRF to support the role of crisis and risk management, it is comprised of core documents, the Emergency Support Functions (ESF), Support and Incident Annexes, and Partner Guides. (Department of Homeland Security, 2009, 2013, and 2015) The NIMS’ role in crisis and risk management is to give the guidance for command and management structures of incidents to organizations or people. It provides the methodical and proactive tactics at all levels of governments to include private sectors to work efficiently to prevent, protect, respond, recover, and mitigate incidents or occurrences no matter the cause, location, size, and the complexity. (Department of Homeland Security, 2008 and 2009) (FEMA, 2013 and 2016)

     My organization deals with telecommunication and crises are always arising all the time. Telecommunications have four threats associated such as compliance, operational, strategic, and financial threats. The number one crisis that falls under compliance is the new roles of involving industry ecosystems. The realization and understanding the importance of the new growth opportunities, customer satisfaction, and competitors to keep up with technology and it is the drive for today’s digital world (new technologies). (EY, 2014) (MSG, 2017) The crises dealing with controlling new structures and essentials for privacy and security with the networks would be the second issue. It is the second importance in a telecommunication organization. The obedience with policy and security is not regulated to protect our data. It is the reason we have the breaches in our networks. (EY, 2014) (MSG, 2017)

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