The ‘targets’ of Product/Process threats are typically organizations, rather than communities, as a whole. For example, when an auto company has to recall all of the vehicles of a certain year/make/model, including not being able to sell (or even show) new ones. Product/Process incidents may start out impacting only a single organization, but those incidents will quickly have a 'ripple' effect with hazards which adversely impact throughout the supply-chain for that organization, and also into the communities where it both resides and provides, as well.
There is a nexus between the Emergency Management Intelligence (EMINT) and the Competitive Intelligence (CI) for these incidents. What you know about your competition – and their pitfalls (even failures) in the way they do business, can certainly open up opportunities for your organization to step in and take market share, etc. Furthermore, CI aspects of EMINT can be a ‘lessons learned’ model for other organizations to revise (and exercise against) their own continuity of operations planning. If it can happen to them, can it happen to you? This analysis extends through to factors such as pricing, performance, and customer satisfaction. All of this can help businesses identify areas for improvement and growth.
For these specific types of incidents, we am going to only focus on the singularity of the incident itself. In the last post of the series, we will cover Complex/Cascading incidents, which will connect one type of threat to another threat or hazard (i.e., the tornado which strikes the processing plant/warehouse, causing a shortage in supplies for the organization).
Any type of break in your organization’s products or services can escalate into an incident with hazards adversely impacting your organization and your people. This can be true for governmental, non-governmental, and of course corporate organizations. Major Product/Process incidents will have adverse impacts on your bottom-line, as well as to your workforce. They can also impact your suppliers and customers. EMINT is needed for both those incidents with notice (when you have advanced warning of the potential incident) and the no-notice incidents (those when you do not).
EMINT helps leaders select which planning elements to activate – including continuity of operations planning. What actions should their staff undertake, for their own safety. Whether something like a work-stoppage (i.e., strike) at your organization or at a partner’s is thought of as a human-made incident or a product-process incident, is somewhat immaterial. It is about how it adversely impacts your organization and your people. For example, if your own union workers will not cross a picket-line in your office campus, say associated with another company being picketed against – that’s a problem for your organization - and probably one not very pronounced in your community.
And yet it may remain one which the rest of the community – including public safety and governmental emergency management officials - will probably not consider as any priority to act upon.
Sometimes it is better to shelter-in-place because of a product-process incident (and possibly keep producing), and sometimes it is better to evacuate (or keep staff at home), which may be the safer choice. And sometimes it can start out as one action and then end up the other. And, as noted in our first blog post of this series, we prefaced these incidents with the word ‘major’ – which is really in the eye of the beholder. What is considered a disaster for our organization, may not have any impact on yours. My usage of the word ‘major’ is to also incorporate outside groups (public safety, partners, etc.), as well as more than one internal worker being impacted. For example, when a worker is absent on an assembly line, is that a major incident impacting your organization’s production? What if it is the CEO? What the impact to an organization will be, depends on a lot of other factors, but we estimate you can already gauge for yourself what incident scenarios would be considered major.
As with other incident types, in most cases, the causality (i.e., who is to blame) is less important in the here and now, than the actual threat (or threats) and its hazards to your organization. The possible nationwide strike at a major logistics firm is the threat; delays in parts deliveries, solidarity work slow-downs, insider sabotage, etc. are the hazards. Your organization probably has very little impact either way on that carrier’s negotiations with its unions.
When stores take your recalled product off their shelves, unless your organization has enough revenue stream to support continued operations at capacity, the causality is not relevant to the adverse impacts of that recall, to your organization. And when the regulators – and the press - come knocking at your office complex, the “why’s” mean nothing to those who were harmed or worse. What counts is what your organization – and its people – do next.
What actions do you take in this priority order, based on the emergency management intelligence you have: to help preserve life safety, support incident stabilization (i.e., do not do the things that make it worse), and then protect your property and assets?
You will find this dictum repeated throughout this series. The three priorities – L = Life Safety, I = Incident Stabilization, and P = Property/Asset Protection, form the top objectives for emergency management response officials – and should be the marching orders for all organizations: switch from making profits/preserving your jobs to protecting people, first and foremost.
Look at vegetable recalls due to salmonella contamination, as an example. Based on EMINT, governmental officials will order the recall of products; and retailers must make sure all of the existing suspect product is removed from store shelves (L). Those stores may also remove other similar products (other brands, other types from the same brand, etc.), since they may be concerned that the recall might expand, or that consumers will not purchase alternatives (I). Last but not least, those public health officials will let the company communicate to the public what is being done, in an effort to help bolster that company’s reputation and other product lines (P). Those impacted farmers need to take steps to protect their workers, their families, and even their livestock, for example. Now is not the time to harvest more crops. Companies who own or work with these impacted producers need to communicate to their workforce to evacuate areas with contamination, or not to come in – and shelter-in-place somewhere safer – especially if they are sick themselves. Failure to preserve and protect life safety can be both deadly and costly to organizations. EMINT is critical for leadership to make informed decisions.
The Center for Emergency Management Intelligence Research (CEMIR) is pleased to engage with both industry professionals from law enforcement and security, as well as professional associations such as the Strategic Consortium of Intelligence Professionals (SCIP), to promote this new concept of EMINT; and to partner with CEMIR. The direct and continuous connection of any and all forms of Intelligence to Emergency Management benefits every community and organization impacted by major incidents, including those which are started with natural/human-made threats.
Please check out our Substack - where this post is found! - which covers EMINT, and currently has a micro-focus on crisis communications, continuity, IDEA, and the threats and hazards around K12 (Primary) Education and Child Care organizations. Other more general aspects of EMINT can be found on our website at www.cemir.org.