Case Studies

Case Study:

Business Continuity Plans (BCPs)

Operational BCP:

The Client: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) country office of an international company manufacturing and selling products throughout the country, including in Eastern DRC.

Project context: the client required the DRC country operation to complete BIAs and BCPs for the operational and back office support departments and their respective activities.

Project framework: working on-site in Kinshasa, our consultants:

  • built the organisation’s understanding of BCM from scratch during a 3 x days course for senior managers;
  • facilitated the completion of BIAs by all the departments;
  • drafted templates and mentored departments as they completed their BCPs, and;
  • supported the Marketing Department in drawing-up a Secondary Supply Chain BCP for all of DRC.

Project outcome: the project was delivered in the form of a series of workshops that led small teams of departmental experts through the process of BIA and then BCP authorship.  The Country Executive Management Team supported the project throughout and attended regular briefing sessions to approve the assumptions made during the BIA and the proposed work-around solutions and to encourage the teams to compete their BCPs.  The final output was a set of comprehensive, high quality and user-friendly BCPs.

Case Study:

Crisis Management Plans (CMPs)

Strategic Crisis Management Plan:

The Client: the East Africa Regional Head Office of an international company manufacturing and distributing fast moving consumer goods.

Project context: the client required a strategic plan (Crisis Management Plan (CMP)) to be drafted that set-out a crisis management framework and strategic guidelines to be used by the top-level management during any major disruption to business operations across the region.

Project framework: working on-site in Nairobi, our consultants:

  • conducted interviews with senior managers to develop concepts e.g. structure, roles and responsibilities and arrangements in the event of site denial;
  • conducted a detailed review of the offices and sites including on-site evaluations of potential disaster recovery sites (DRS);
  • drew up a framework and secured approval of Executive Management;
  • authored a detailed CMP, and;
  • secured the approval of senior management for the final document.

Project outcome: the project was delivered in close collaboration with the Regional Head of Risk and Security who is responsible for BCM.  A draft CMP was “sanity tested” during a desktop exercise over a 3 x day BCM course for senior managers.  Based on lessons learned from the exercise, improvements were made to ensure that the CMP was 100% fit-for-purpose.

Case Study:

Contingency Planning for high-impact threats

Contingency planning:

The Client: an international grower and major exporter of high-value agricultural products based in a politically volatile part of Kenya.

Project context: the client operates a number of agricultural estates in an area of the country where political tensions run notoriously high. These tensions are exacerbated during Kenya’s hotly contested, winner-takes-all national election cycle. In order to ensure the safety and security of their people, assets, and premises as well as the continuity of their operations during the forthcoming election cycle, senior management required a Contingency Plan be drawn up and rehearsals undertaken.

Project framework: working in both Head Office in Nairobi and at the disbursed sites, our consultants:

  • met with, discussed and drew up plans for the design of a Contingency Plan to cover civil disorder during an election period;
  • conducted extensive on-site recces and comprehensive meetings with senior managers, site managers and community leaders;
  • designed and drew up comprehensive Contingency Plans that were then rehearsed involving staff at the most vulnerable sites.

Project outcome: as the client was highly dependent on workers from outside the area, we designed the project so that it generated confidence in all staff that the company had their best interests at heart and that they would be safe and secure during the anticipated high-threat period.  The CP allowed the company to continue its growing, picking and exporting operations in spite of country-wide disruptions which impacted less resilient competitors.

Case Study:

Business Impact Analysis (BIA)

The Client: the Head Office of an international company growing agricultural produce in Uganda.

Project context: in-line with their global corporate policy, the client required the Ugandan country operation to complete BIAs and BCPs for their operational and back office support departments covering respective activities.

Project framework: the project required our consultant to work on-site in Kampala to:

  • develop the organisation’s understanding of BCM and, in particular, the BIA process;
  • facilitate the completion of BIAs by all the departments, and;
  • ensure BIAs were written up accurately so that they would be fit-for-purpose and inform the development of the Business Continuity Plans (BCPs).

Project outcome: the project took 4 x days and was delivered by means of a series of carefully crafted workshops that led the departmental teams through a step-by-step process.   The Country Executive Management Team supported the project throughout and attended regular briefing sessions to check assumptions and to approve the proposed work-around solutions.  The final output was a set of high-quality, comprehensive BIAs that were then used to populate the BCPs.

Case Study:

Operational Resilience Training & Capacity Building

Executive Management Team Study Period:

The Client: the Executive Team of an international company with a large workforce delivering operations throughout Southern Africa Region.

Project context: the client had concerns about how the organisation would manage an unexpected “bolt-out-of-the-blue” serious incident that might impact on their staff, third party suppliers, customers and business operations across the region.

Project framework: a bespoke seminar was designed and delivered in Head Office in South Africa and was pitched at strategic level throughout. The agenda was: an overview of BCM best practice to set the context; an explanation of the strategic crisis management toolkit, and; a facilitated session based on a scenario involving the sudden death of a senior national figure.

Project outcome: this approach enabled the team to explore the future operating environment in which they might find themselves, including the issues that might arise from the anticipated scenario and the challenges the organisation might face. The outcome gave the senior management the confidence, knowledge and skills to deal with any sudden disruption and triggered the drawing up of a specific Contingency Plan.

Business Continuity Management (BCM) Course:

The Client: a global company with a Head Office in London required BCM training to be delivered consistently across their regional head office teams in all of their devolved country offices.

Project context: this required a standard BCM course (3 x days) and supporting materials to be designed and approved by the company and included: a syllabus and programme; presentation slides; instructor notes; BIA methodology and template; a Crisis Management Plan and departmental BCPs and exercises to confirm student understanding at each step of the (BS25999) BCM life-cycle.

Project framework: the project was delivered using two methodologies:

  • a high level (global) train-the-trainer workshop in UK for all the senior regional project managers and then, in the case of the devolved regions, a second train-the-trainer (5 x days) course for senior project managers and BCM sponsors from every country;
  • in East and Southern Africa, BCM courses were delivered to senior managers in each of the main countries.

Project outcome: the approach enabled the client to train its own in-house team and to take their BCM programme to the next level. Having its own in-house BCM capability greatly improves the resilience of any organisation.

Crisis Management Workshop:

The Client: a company with a Head Office in Nairobi with a mature BCM system in-place required crisis management training for all senior staff who might be required to participate as members of the tactical level crisis management team (CMT) should it be required to operate during a turbulent election cycle.

Project context: although BCM was well understood by some in the senior management team, there had been recent staff turbulence and turn over resulting in a degradation of understanding and ability to deal effectively with disruptions. There was also some uncertainty that critical third party suppliers had the necessary resilience measures in place thereby affecting confidence in the business’s ability to deal with the anticipated disruptions.

Project framework: 36 x senior staff attended the one day crisis management workshop that provided a shared awareness of the comprehensive contingency planning already in-place and the client’s crisis management toolkit. Attendees also included key third party providers and logistics providers who were essential to the just-in-time operating model of the main business. The day concluded with a desktop exercise involving all delegates that was based on a civil disorder scenario as had been previously experienced in Kenya.

Project outcome: this approach proved a winner as it not only built business cohesion between the main business and its key third party suppliers, it also built an understanding of, and a consensus around, the BCP that was already in place. When civil disorder did break out, our client was able to maintain their operations unhindered.