Incident command systems aid in business continuity
Emergency planning is critical, but a rigid approach can only compound problems; ICSs permit flexible response while ensure a chain of command; predetermining roles and responsibility key to success
The future has a way of arriving unannounced, so don’t get caught with
your pants down. Disasters strike out of nowhere and can lead to business disruption which will result in lost of profit and costly recoveries. The unpredictable nature of each incident requires that businesses remain flexible and on the ready to handle anything from fire to flood. Yet businesses often remain shackled to predetermined fixed response plans that might not scale well or be able to handle multi-departmental responses. In a long-term disaster, this lack of flexibility can result in both immediate chaos and the inability to recover as situations change.
To ensure minimal impact to the customers, experts recommend that businesses develop an Incident Command System (ICS) — an idea born out of inter-agency and jurisdiction cooperation in the wake of the 1970s California wildfires. Designed to provide a unified command structure and scalable responses tailored to each individual incident, the ICS provides a structure to ensure that resources are distributed efficiently and without duplication. A typical ICS has a three tiered command system. Tier I is responsible for first responses to the emergency and assessment of the situation, so that Tier II can proceed
with the resumption of critical services and activities; Tier III’s sole responsibility is to provide oversight and distribute resources as needed.
Properly role distribution is critical. Employees within an ICS are therefore typicallu assigned specific duties to perform within each tier. These include: Executive members who oversees all aspects of the ICS; an operations team that direct the activities necessary to meet defined recovery time/point objectives; a planning team that provides the overall deployment status for all resources and associated event information; a logistics team that manages the actual deployment of all resources based on prioritized allocations; an administration team that provides for the funding and purchasing of related resources and supplies; a public relations team; and a customer communications team.
-read more in David Newsom’s ContinuityCentral report
