Learning From the Post Earthquake Resiliency of Japanese Companies

Some of the larger businesses that were impacted by the recent Japanese earthquake were able to overcome the disaster and recover remarkably quickly.

How did some companies recover so fast? By being both prepared and working with resources outside of their companies, such as vendors and building the redundancy into the manufacturing and supply chain processes.

In a recent article written by Michael Koploy titled The Post-Tsunami Supply Chain All-Stars | Who Recovered the Fastest and How? he details how some of these companies overcame the worst earthquake in Japanese history.

Check out his article to glean more insight in what these companies did differently and learn what you should be doing at your business.

Wine Owner Suffers $1 Million Loss After Accident

In the last few years there have been a number of mishaps involving wine and wineries resulting in losses impacting their businesses. The latest of these events involves the estimated loss of more than $1 million worth of 2010 Mollydooker Velvet Glove Shiraz.

Sparky Marquis, the owner of Mollydooker wines was planning to ship the wines to the United States to formally launch the wine for the first time. With only one case of the 462 cases surviving the fall, the launch will now have to wait. The wine was valued at 185 Australian dollars per bottle ($200 U.S.).

As I mentioned earlier, this is not the only mishap to occur in the wine industry in the last few years.

Consider what you would do if the following occurred at your winery:

• Contamination from cleaning solvents used in the bottling process ruins $60,000 worth of wine.
• An employee doesn’t turn off a tank valve, and you lose 20,000 gallons of wine due to leakage.
• An employee accidently drives a forklift into a wine tank, causing the tank to collapse and the wine to spill out, potentially resulting in $100,000 in damages.

Several years ago a massive fire broke out at a wine storage facility causing $2,000,000 in losses and wiping out entire inventories of wine.  

Coupling my love of wine with business continuity planning I wanted to us this post to show that nearly any business can benefit from proper contingency planning. Why? With proper planning many of these mishaps do not have to result in the complete loss of inventories, income, or even result in complete business disruptions.  

I'll be doing an upcoming post on what you can do to implement a business continuity plan at no cost.

Understanding a Disaster Declaration

Too many people, including business owners and even local officials do not fully understand how the process of disaster declarations work. Before the President can make a disaster declaration and commit funds and resources to a disaster the Governor of a State must first make a declaration.

Here is a little bit more on how this process works brought to you by ABC KCAU-TV:

A disaster declaration request can be made by the governor of a state through the regional Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) office to the president of the United States.

 To request a disaster declaration, state and federal officials conduct joint preliminary damage assessments (PDAs) to estimate the extent of the disaster and its impact on individuals and public facilities. This information is then included in the governor's request to show that state and local government can't effectively respond and that federal assistance is necessary.

 If a disaster declaration is declared by the president, federal programs will be activated to assist in disaster response and recovery efforts. The disaster declaration can include means for either public or individual assistance or both.

 Public Assistance: Through the Public Assistance (PA) Grant Program, FEMA provides supplemental federal disaster grant assistance for debris removal, emergency protective measures, and the repair, replacement, or restoration of disaster-damaged, publicly owned facilities and the facilities of certain Private Non-Profit (PNP) organizations. The PA Program can also provide help to lessen potential damages from future events.

 Individual Assistance: Homeowners, renters & businesses owners may be eligible to receive assistance for property that has been damaged or destroyed and whose loss is not covered by insurance. The assistance is not intended to restore damaged property to its condition before the disaster.

 Additional information on rebuilding and recovering from a disaster can be found on the FEMA website at http://www.fema.gov/index.shtm

 The state of Nebraska is currently in the PDA collection and assessment process. Once the process is completed a determination will be made on whether the state has met the damage threshold necessary to request a Disaster Declaration.

Flash Mobs increasingly Being Used to Commit Acts of Violence and Crime

I have discussed with several people the potential for the use of the “Flash Mob” for nefarious purposes in the past. I believe that we will also see a continuing progression of their use for violent and other criminal activities that will have an impact on business and society itself if some of our other forecasts prove to be correct.  

As we have seen over the course of the last year Flash Mobs have turned violent or have been used to carry out violence and other crimes. They have been an issue in various cities particularly in Philadelphia, Chicago and St. Paul as well as several others.

Flash mobs have also been targeting retailers to commit brazen acts of intimidation and theft. Everything from convince stores, to Macy’s, CVS and most recently Sears have been targets of these type of Flash Mobs.

If you are a retailer especially with a presence in a mall the Flash Mob should be something that concerns you. Be sure to discuss this with your employees and consider adding this to your list of risk exposures and work with your security personnel so they are also aware of the issue.

We are also concerned about the potential for other groups to use Flash Mobs for more violent acts, including terrorist attacks.

Below are some video’s showing some of these Flash Mobs in action.



The Contingency Planning & Management Conference CPM 2011 - May 9-11

The Contingency Planning & Management Conference (CPM 2011) - http://contingencyplanning.com) is coming up May 9-11 in Las Vegas. It offers a 5-track program taught by leading faculty in small, classroom settings.

If you've never attended before, CPM 2011 is the only conference where business continuity, risk management, disaster recovery and emergency response professionals can learn from and network with top industry experts and collaborate face-to-face with their peers.

PLUS CPM 2011 attendees get an exclusive discount to see the hit musical Jersey Boys on May 10th at the Palazzo: http://tiny.cc/CPMJerseyBoys

Interested in attending? Register for CPM 2011 at http://tiny.cc/CPM2011Reg.

Also, Reader of Disaster Preparedness Blog can register using code: NW1C08 when registering for the conference. This code is good until Monday, April 18, 2011 - so Hurry!

As recent events from Japan to Portugal to the Middle East have demonstrated, you can't over-think contingency, emergency business planning or disaster recovery in an increasingly interconnected world. CPM 2011 will bring together experts for advanced-level education on today's hot topics – including sessions such as "Dependencies and Interdependencies: Will Your Business Recover?" and "Cloud Computing - Ready Or Not It's Here." You can learn more about tracks, sessions, and speakers at http://tiny.cc/CPM2011Trks.