Business recovery at an arson damaged office

Russell Stewart, Head of Continuity, Safety & Security, KPMG

Abstract
This paper is in the form of a case study that relates how KPMG's crisis management, business recovery and risk mitigation plans, methods and organisation were applied to ensure its clients’ services were not compromised following significant damage to a major office following an arson attack. The paper describes the firm’s overall business continuity management (BCM) approach and its key principles, drawn from established BCM, emergency services and psychology sources. The narrative element of the article tracks the event timeline and the firm's corresponding response. The overall management of the incident and its consequences were deemed successful, validating a lean BCM training and exercise regime. A significant learning point was the need to manage numerous stakeholders’ interests, engaging on several fronts in parallel, to engender consensus and to expedite decision making. The paper offers practical suggestions to help organisations manage the impact of crisis events on their employees and clients.

Keywords
crisis, recovery, protocol, communication, clients, reputation

Russell Stewart has responsibility for KPMG's physical risk management in Europe, which includes internal business continuity management, security and health and safety. KPMG is a global network of professional firms providing audit, tax and advisory services with 140,000 professionals working together to deliver value in 146 countries. Russell has been in this position for over seven years, following a fourteen-year career in information systems and technology management with a number of companies including Tetley, Diageo and Schindler. Prior to this, Russell served with the Royal Hong Kong Police and London’s Metropolitan Police services.

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