Crises can take many forms, from the more conventional – fire, flood and theft – to a terrorist incident or natural disaster that materially impacts the operations of an international enterprise. Sudden political change, the outbreak of violence or worrying developments can trigger the immediate evacuation of expatriate personnel or the need to close or “mothball” an overseas plant or operation.

SVA has extensive experience in dealing with the unexpected and in advising boards of directors and CEOs as to appropriate courses of actions when faced with extreme challenges or potentially enterprise threatening situations.

“Failing to plan is also said to be planning to fail”. Without careful training and regular practice in crisis communications, it is unlikely that an organisation will perform well under pressure. SVA and its alliance partners provide realistic training and testing in this area.

Crisis Containment, Training and Contingency Planning Services

Working closely with company directors and senior management, SVA can support the corporation in planning for, training for, and executing crisis plans as situations occur. Our services in this area include:

• Contingency planning: including devising a crisis response strategy at corporate headquarters, regional and local levels. Regular testing and amendment of such plans is necessary to allow for the fluid nature of the modern corporation and to ensure flexibility.
• Hands-on proactive crisis containment: working hand in hand with clients and their crisis containment committees to practically deal with live situation. SVA’s team of senior consultants has unparalleled experience in dealing with serious incidents and crises.
• Extortion response consulting: modern corporations can face a wide range of threats from parties with varied agendas. These can take the form of out and out extortion or threats to infrastructure or processes to or denial of service attacks to computer systems. In various parts of the emerging economies, little practical help can be expected from local government or law enforcement. SVA will provide experienced consultants to guide senior management through such incidents.
  See also further information regarding our Kidnap & Ransom and Product Extortion Consulting services.
• Evacuation of personnel: events can move swiftly and the ability to be able to flexibly and safely evacuate key employees from locations where the situation has rapidly deteriorated is crucial. SVA can deploy swiftly and work with management to find the most appropriate and safe manner of evacuating key employees or “mothballing”/securing overseas locations/facilities.
• Business continuity planning and practical response to incidents: many organisations — including large accounting firms offer these services but few have the hands on experience to practically implement such plans when the necessity actually arrives. SVA’s consultants have real world expertise, a sense of urgency and the capability of delivering results when difficult situations present themselves.
• Provision of timely intelligence as to likely threats to corporations: sudden changes to government policies or leadership or an outbreak of violence or anti-western sentiment can require a rapid response and change of corporate posture. SVA can monitor local situations and provide security and intelligence briefs to assist in corporate planning and the protection of personnel and plant.