The musical melody is pleasing. The sparkling ambience is exquisite. The guests have gathered to experience the affluent hospitality of a star class city hotel. Everything happens to perfection and - it is smiles, joy and cheers all around.
Wine, dine and dance seem to be the order of the day - and everyone wants to enjoy their happy stake in the merry.
All of a sudden – out of the blue – hell breaks loose. A terrorist with a lethal gun in his hand dashes in to the gigantic hallway, firing indiscriminately at the guests and staff – maneouvering his killing reflexes and bursting gun in a flash.
All what can NOW be seen is screaming people, many instantaneously falling on the shattered marble floor – spraying sizzling blood from their bodies – some dying at once. The gorgeous setting a few seconds ago has turned into a pond of blood and a field of death.
This is mass murder at its worst. The terrorism displayed its ugliest form of brutality for the umpteenth time.
This is not a horror fiction, but a fractional re-count of the reality surfaced in that fateful night – November 26, 2008 - in the Mumbai Metropolitan Serial Attack. By now, much has been said, written and shown about the mayhem itself and its physical, psychological and holistic economic losses. Now, what is significant is how much we in Corporate Sri Lanka are prepared to learn from it and then DO what is within our preparatory aptitude and response capacity.
The foremost lesson given to us once more, is that every disaster has its first time and first victim. The next lesson is that - no matter how rigid we try to argue that we are NOT a target, or this will never happen to us, or it is highly unlikely that we are under threat – it is the terrorists who single out their target, the time, the duration, the mode of destruction and its magnitude. The reason to pick us as their next victim is a ‘situational strategic decision’ taken by the terrorist leadership, which is beyond the grasp of peaceful minds in the midst of our routine corporate thinking and time lined management strains.
Planning
There is a school of thought developed by some in business that a corporate can do nothing in a deadly scenario like what happened in Mumbai. It is nothing short of resting the total dependability in the hands of the state security apparatus to safeguard private business ventures. This reflection has its drawback in terms of practicality and leadership moral responsibility though it it is a issue for an armchair debate. The comprehensive organizational protection planning is certainly in demand ‘before disaster’ - to prevent, minimize and mitigate the avenues of such catastrophe taking place in a business locality. This is a premier responsibility of the corporate management in a business venture. Waiting by way of ‘doing nothing preventive in advance’ - while exposing its staff and customers to absolute dangers of urban terrorism - and then expecting the state security apparatus to do the magic after a tragedy only provides unexplainable corporate irresponsibility, indifference or arrogance, if not a combination of all.
What should corporates do?
The protection commences with filtering who serves under our wings. It plainly is, whether a group of terrorists could infiltrate in to the organization as skilled staff and linger around as ‘sleepers’ – waiting for the killing orders to draw their guns in lightning flash someday. The next is to minimize the chances of (both in-house and outsourced) staff are being theorized, bought over or influenced to support the urban terrorist network. Terrorist operators or staff working on their behalf will execute acts of espionage to collect data to support the customized design of the devastation. To minimize such deadly avenues, the corporates need to contemplate – design – train and apply adequate infiltration filtering, espionage controls, intrusion guarding, surveillance layers and early detective and notification systems via its staff and other integrations. In certain components, seeking the guidance of the state security apparatus is feasible, but not in all disciplines at all times.
In designing of corporate contingency response planning to mitigate the urban terrorism risk, it necessitates that the businesses do incorporate some potentialities and planning essentials as highlighted below: Serial Explosions; Gun Fire Domination; Hostage Captivity; Killing of Hostages; Arson & Fire; Aerial Bombing; Lethal Gas Attack ; Crisis Detection; Crisis Notification; Internal Response; External Response; Staff & Customer Safety; Disaster Managing and Disaster Recovery.
Pre-disaster preparedness by all means, is a challenging mission. It needs the blessings of the stakeholders, commitment on the part of management, support of the associates and guidance of the state security apparatus – followed by sufficient funding. This may seem difficult, yet terrorism does not offer us any other safe option. Either we get prepared and trained or become a dismal accident that is waiting to happen. In the final analysis, the choice is ours.
(The writer is the Corporate Risk and BCP Specialist / CEO of Strategic Risk Solutions. He can be reached at solutions@sltnet.lk.)
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