Crisis communication - how MGX developed a media plan for the World Summit

One such company was the Business Continuity Solutions division at JSE Securities Exchange-listed MGX, which enlisted the services of public relations and communications consultancy FHC Strategic Communications to develop and implement a crisis management media plan for the company and its clients, for the duration of the Summit

"Because of the nature of our business, which focuses on disaster recovery, business continuity and data security services, we felt it was imperative to back these services up with a strategic crisis media plan," says Willem Olivier, specialist consultant, Business Continuity Solutions at MGX. "There would be no point having a sophisticated backup or disaster recovery plan in place that enables our clients and their customers to continue doing business if we cannot communicate this to the public, including customers, staff, shareholders and suppliers."

MGX's business continuity division offers clients a scalable, on-demand infrastructure within a business continuity facility that provides disaster recovery and consulting services, as well as treasury room recovery, call centre recovery and conventional office space recovery.

The MGX division worked closely with organisations involved in the Summit preparations to assess the risks the conference posed to its high-profile clients and to establish the processes needed to respond to disruptions and disasters as they might arise. A core part of its preparation for the Summit was to meet individually with each of its clients in and around the Summit environs. The clients were briefed about the conference itself, and were given recommendations from an IT, security and infrastructure perspective. They were also informed about all potential situations and scenarios around the Summit.

Following a complete audit of its facilities to ensure it could cater for any potential events that could disrupt the businesses of clients located in areas where the main conference and side events were to take place, Business Continuity Solutions at MGX was ready to invoke business recovery systems and processes for all of its Sandton-based clients at the same time, should the need have arisen.

"A number of possible threats, risks and incidents were identified that could take place during the Summit, including access denial, power outages, telecommunication outages, and extremist protests," says Evan Bloom, strategy director at FHC. "We had to be prepared to strategically tackle any situation that could affect Business Continuity Solutions' clients. Our key objective was to support our client's clients in the event of their sites or businesses being impacted by a crisis. For example, if one of these clients' call centre staff had not been able to get to work, or if there had been an electricity outage, lack of communication or a slow response to media enquiries would have worsened the situation and placed the company's credibility and public image at risk.

"In addition to crisis planning for Business Continuity Solutions' clients, we also had to put in place a plan that would manage a media crisis in the event that its facility was targeted by any group or person, and that would also support any of its clients who might have had a media crisis situation on their hands if their IT or other business systems had been damaged."

"Our own integrated business continuity and disaster recovery solution was backed by FHC's core skills in crisis communication," says Olivier. "This meant that we were ready to deal with disaster at every level."

Bloom says companies need to realise that while they prepare for major events, there are many variables that are completely outside of their control. This is particularly true when dealing with an event such as the Summit, which attracted the attention of anti-globalisation, anti-capitalism and environmental activists.

"In addition to the media crisis management plan, we briefed Business Continuity Solutions' top executives and key spokespeople to ensure they were prepared to deal with local and international media. We also set up a crisis management centre and prepared a number of skeleton press releases in response to identified possible scenarios; these we would have been able to turn around in less than 15 minutes from first draft to final approval had a crisis occurred.

"Over and above this, holding statements were prepared to deal with each situation that could affect the company's facility so that if a situation occurred, the correct messaging could be given to affected clients."

Once the crisis plan had been approved and media training had taken place, dry runs were held involving the FHC and MGX teams. With the commencement of the Summit, the FHC media crisis team was placed on 24-hour call. All news across all channels, including radio, television and the Internet, was scanned on an hourly basis, with the two companies establishing contact three times a day, including weekends, for the duration of the Summit.

"We chose to work with FHC on the basis of its specialised knowledge of the IT industry and of our business in particular," says Olivier. "Its crisis management capability and offering proved to be sufficiently sophisticated to handle such a large undertaking. Throughout the Summit, we were confident that we were capable of dealing with any eventuality. The process in itself gave our staff a new confidence in being prepared for and dealing with the media."