74 INTERNATIONAL FIRE PROTECTION
GLOBAL CRISIS MANAGEMENT
G
lobal crisis management consists of creat-
ing a streamline process of managing crisis
on a local, regional and global basis
depending on the severity of the crisis that has
occurred. To effectively develop a global crisis
management program, a company needs to
address several issues to manage, communicate
and respond to a crisis that could occur in
various locations worldwide. These issues include
1) Standardized Crisis Management Team Struc-
ture, 2) Standardized Crisis Levels, 3) Standardized
Crisis Response Procedures, 4) Standardized Crisis
Communication Program and 5) Training and
Integration with Local Authorities.
Global crisis management is an ongoing
process that should be started when a company
starts to expand operations to other locations
outside their base of operations where crises
could adversely affect operations. The global crisis
management program should be spearheaded by
the corporate level management and filtered
down to the local management teams in the
areas of operations.
Step 1: standardized crisis management
team structure
To effectively manage a crisis, a crisis manage-
ment team structure should be developed to
identify key aspects of the response efforts that
need to be managed. Without a structured team
identified, a company may face challenges in
coordination, communication and management
of crisis on a local level, regional level and even a
global level. The crisis management team structure
should include standardized team structures for
levels of the company including local manage-
ment teams and a corporate management team.
The team structure needs to create a uniform
structure throughout the company that allows for
easier management of crisis in the event the crisis
escalates from a local crisis to a larger, more
global crisis that adversely affects more business
units of the company. The top level of the crisis
management team structure should be coordi-
nated at the corporate management level. The
corporate level crisis management team should be
responsible for the overall management of
response efforts with a focus on maintaining the
stability and operations of the business during
and after the crisis has occurred.
In the event of a large scale, global crisis, the
corporate crisis management team should be
responsible for determining resources required to
assist in response efforts, identifying mutual aid
support that needs to be coordinated and coordi-
nating with local and regional management
teams that may need additional support due to
the nature and severity of the crisis.
The corporate crisis management team should
include positions that are responsible for various
aspects of the response including: 1) Crisis
Commander � position responsible for the overall
coordination of the response efforts of the company;
2) Crisis Operations Office � position responsible for
coordination and management of response efforts;
By Jon M. Evenson
Senior Consultant,
Rolf Jensen &
Associates (RJA)
Global Crisis M
Steps to Developing a Global Crisis
Management Approach
In current times, companies are moving towards globalization of services and
locations to better serve clients worldwide. With this move to globalization,
managing global business operations also needs to address crisis management
on a global basis. In the event a crisis affects a section of company's global
market, companies need to be able to respond to the crisis effectively and
pro-actively to maintain stability to their clients.
Global crisis management is an ongoing process
that should be started when a company starts to
expand operations to other locations outside their
base of operations where crises could adversely
affect operations.

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