Social Unrest - March 30, 2011



Matt DeFrain, Senior Manager, Deloitte

David Sarabacha, Principal, Deloitte  

Steven Crimando, Managing Director, XBRM (Moderator)

Stephen Iannone, Sergeant, NYPD Counterterrorism Division

New York City Half Day Event

Business Continuity Planning for Social Unrest in a Volatile World

In today's world, social unrest occurs at any time and has no bounds... Student unrest... political assassinations... violent protests... These acts of conflict occur not only in other countries, but can happen within the boundaries of the United States, subjecting your employees to random, unprovoked and lethal violence.

This meeting probed the question: How extensive is the breadth and depth of your business continuity planning to address social unrest?  Defining and Recognizing Social Unrest explored the ever-growing definition of social unrest and included the psychological and environmental factors that foster it. Focus was centered on the key questions: What is social unrest?; Why does it happen?; How do I recognize it and what can I do?; Is it a growing and changing trend? Recognizing the indicators of social unrest in the early stages may prompt fast and timely actions to mitigate and prepare for escalating situations.

Tactical Response to Social Unrest focused on planning for and addressing events caused by social unrest. While mitigation steps can be helpful, a robust planning and training program is necessary to respond to the question: what are the response considerations?

Planning and Responding to the Inevitable Event focused on understanding the various risk mitigation steps is an important line of defense, leading to a robust planning and training program. The key questions for this session were: How is planning for social unrest different? Can the plan be exercised and tested?; What training is needed to be effective?; What are the key considerations during response and plan activation? A dynamic and flexible plan coupled with extensive training is the best resource for meeting this challenge