Crisis Management & Response

Practical Crisis Management response for management.

Crisis Management Training Programmes

Alistair Cole Consulting is a privately-owned company based in the UK.  Alistair Cole Consulting provides specialist training and expertise to corporations and organisations whose personnel are required to travel or work in potentially hostile environments.


The company has achieved BS ISO EN 9001:2009 status, an international mark of quality, for its specialist training courses and is registered with the Charterer Institute of Environmental Health as a provider of approved first aid training.


Alistair Cole Consulting has pioneered a number of innovations in the field of safety training and advice, for example security reports from some of the world’s hot spots and scenario centric training programmes.


Alistair Cole Consulting’s personnel can travel to conduct on-site safety worldwide, conduct site surveys, and make recommendations for building security, staff security and operational security. We also provide location staff to accompany personnel in the field.


Because of our reputation for quality and high standards in the safety and security industry, Alistair Cole Consulting senior staff were invited to write the Learning Outside the Classroom (LOtC) quality badge in overseas expeditions, launched in 2008 the guidance aims to set benchmark standards for expedition companies operating overseas.


Alistair Cole Consulting’s Crisis Management team includes highly experienced personnel in the field of operational Crisis Management. Our staff have been responsible for preparing, training and co-ordinating the organised response to high profile emergencies in the UK and overseas.


Please contact us for further information.

Think worst case scenario?

Imagine the worst-case scenario that could conceivably happen to your organisation: The death of an employee? A bus crash? A kidnapping abroad?  How prepared would your organisation be if this scenario became a reality? Could the event be contained and resolved, or does it have the ability to damage your organisations profile, harm your staff, destroy your infrastructure, or seriously affect the organisations ability to perform its key functions?


What effect could this event have, if not handled correctly, on your company’s corporate image; a dramatic fall in share price? loss of reputation? legal action? public condemnation?


As a key decision-maker or of the organisation, you must decide with your key management team how the organisation will react to any such emergency. And in order to minimise the event’s long-term impact, you and your team must react quickly and make the right decisions at a time when the organisation is at its most vulnerable, and therefore most liable to make mistakes.



The legal position

Prosecution has become a reality facing all companies since the Corporate Manslaughter Act came into force. This act makes an organisation guilty of the offence of corporate manslaughter if the way in which any of the company’s activities are managed or organised by the senior managers causes a person’s death; and amounts to a gross breach of a relevant duty of care owed by the organisation to the deceased. This law applies across the board to companies operating across the globe. The law recognizes a senior manager as a member of an organisation who plays a significant role in the making of decisions as to how its activities are to be managed or organised.


Without formal guidelines, a reporting system or an agreed response, even the most experienced management team can be reduced to a degree of confusion that they are unable to respond effectively. This can lead to errors of judgement that may in turn develop into a major crisis situation, with associated corporate risk (legal, financial, reputation, media, health and safety etc.).


The balance of probabilities suggests that a crisis situation will manifest itself away from your head office location, with possible added difficulties of extreme weather conditions, logistics or language barriers to overcome. It is therefore important to have a system in place for managing such a crisis, with clearly documented and tested procedures and teams who are fully trained and rehearsed.



What is crisis management

Crisis Management is defined as “The identification of threats to an organization and its stakeholders, and the methods used by the organization to deal with these threats”. Due to the unpredictability of global events, organizations must be able to cope with the potential for drastic changes to the way they conduct business. Crisis Management often requires decisions to be made within a short time frame, and often after an event has already taken place. The key to effective Crisis Management is in the preparation and rehearsal of a corporate Contingency Plan, based on the worst-case scenario that empowers a trained and practiced Crisis Management Team whose role is to effectively minimise the effect a significant crisis.



How can we help?

Alistair Cole Consulting’s Risk and Crisis Management professionals have a background in UK law enforcement, Health & Safety, military protection operations and overseas expeditions. Our team possesses the necessary experience to facilitate crisis and risk management scenarios in order to minimise the event’s impact. There are four key elements to successful Crisis Management:


  • Crisis preparedness
  • Emergency response
  • Business continuity
  • Disaster recovery


Alistair Cole Consulting can assist organisations to identify the risks, response, management and recovery of a crisis situation, based on the ‘worse case scenario’ of an event directly impacting on the organisation’s staff, operations and corporate image.


We can assist in the establishment of a formal Crisis Management Organisation comprising:


  • A Crisis Management team
  • A Crisis Response team
  • A Crisis Management guide
  • A rehearsed exercise and assessment
  • A continuing programme of staff training and reviews


A well trained Crisis Management Organisation quickly identifies threats, assesses the level of risk, and is able to make informed decisions and take appropriate action in order to confidently manage a crisis as and when necessary.


Alistair Cole Consulting’s Crisis Management team can assists clients by:


  • Undertaking a holistic understanding of their organisation’s key vulnerabilities, and design strategies to reduce those threats or risks
  • Working with clients to develop crisis management plans that have been determined by risk assessments
  • Test the plan to assess likely success / failure of the plan and amend accordingly
  • Document procedures
  • Conduct regular exercise reviews and continuation training


Our staff will take you through the lessons learned from previous case studies by examining crises that hit the headlines with significant implications for those involved. Combining theory with practice your team will be put through their paces in a structured approach to learning, leading to Crisis Management Team exercises designed to challenge and inspire. The case studies and exercises are built around themes which are introduced incrementally to develop analysis and understanding of a variety of crisis situations.