Could the Crisis Response to Iceland's Hekla Volcanic Eruption Have Been Better Managed?

ABU DHABI, EAU, April 28, 2010 - The recent volcanic eruption in Iceland has been the most significant
incident that has had the biggest impact on the travel and aviation sector
since 911. Once the dust has settled (please excuse the pun), people will be
asking questions about what could have been done differently to limit the
commercial impact.

The conduct and ongoing management of Business Impact Analysis (BIA) is
both critical and foundational to achieving a robust Business Continuity
Management (BCM) programme that protects the organization through adverse
operating conditions and avoids Disaster.

Typically business impact analysis is conducted as a process-driven
approach that assesses an organisation's business processes to determine
their criticality, the resources they rely on and the potential impact their
disruption may have on the organization; however, from a practical
perspective, this approach is only suitable for organisations with a small
set of critical processes and simple dependencies. Complex organisations can
have hundreds of business processes, making this approach both costly and
difficult or near impossible to conduct.

International organisations could benefit from a more value-driven
business impact analysis. Strategic consultants Boartes are taking the lead
in development of value driven business impact analysis. They have developed
a more successful approach that considers the organisation from an
'enterprise' perspective by identifying the value-generating activities.
Defined business processes are mapped according to their value-generating
activities into the "Value Chain" to determine criticality. Boartes has
extensively applied this approach successfully to conduct BIA in complex
organisations.

This approach to business impact analysis allows individual business
functions to be analysed according to their criticality and contribution to
the organisation's Vision and Mission. This is achieved through the
quantification of the effect of business disruption on critical process
within the Organisation's 'Value Chain'; further, Interdependencies are
captured within the "Value Chain" to allow each business function to be
correctly prioritized based on their collective contribution and associated
impact of loss.

Guy Peterson, an international Boartes Business Continuity Management
expert, stated that "Conducting a Business Impact Analysis is a critical step
in the business continuity planning process, which ensures an organisation
correctly responds to incident or disaster with planned levels of disruption;
however, traditional approaches to conducting BIA often fail due to the
complexity of today's operating environment … the 'Value Chain' approach to
BIA allows organisations to capture operating complexity with a simple model
that can be rapidly deployed and easily managed."

The issues relating to BIA and other strategies for mitigation and
control of disaster and crisis response risk will be discussed at the
Disaster Management and Crisis Response Middle East event. During this
industry leading four day event regional and international thought leaders
will gather on 23 -26 May 2010 at Le Royal Meridien, Abu Dhabi to highlight
the importance of national emergency management and the strategies required
to create unified plans. Disaster Management and Crisis Response will help
you to identify effective disaster management systems that strengthen
preparedness and response capabilities.

Take the opportunity to discuss BIA and other approaches with experts
from Boartes, NCEMA, Abu Dhabi Emergency & Public Safety Department, London
Ambulance Service, UNDP, King Abdul Aziz Medical City, World Food Program,
Ras Gas and many others.

To learn more about the latest within crisis management visit
www.disasterandcrisisresponse.me or email enquiry@iqpc.ae for more
information.

For more information please contact -

    Michaela Heidenfelder
    Marketing Manager
    IQPC Middle East FZ LLC
    Block 11 Office #111
    Knowledge Village
    PO Box 502397
    Dubai, United Arab Emirates
    Tel: +971-4-4331420
    Fax: +971-4-363-1925
    Web: www.iqpc.ae

For more information please contact - Michaela Heidenfelder, Marketing Manager, IQPC Middle East FZ LLC, Block 11 Office #111, Knowledge Village, PO Box 502397, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Tel: +971-4-4331420, Fax: +971-4-363-1925