Practical Approach Best For Contingency Planning

Practical Approach Best For Contingency Planning

London Editor

Some organizations had a knee-jerk reaction to the threat of potential terrorism attacks immediately after Sept. 11, a counter-terrorism expert contends.

In the weeks after Sept. 11, some counter-terrorism and crisis management firms exploited clients fears to make a quick profit, according to Will Geddes, chief executive officer of International Corporate Protection Ltd. in London. He explained that a U.S. client in the oil and energy sector was told by a security company that it could protect one of the client's refineries for $5 million. “Thats overkill; thats not a good practical solution,” he said.

Whenever possible, an organization should strive not to incur further costs to protect against terrorist threats, he advised. “Ultimately you could spend $5 million, but you still may not be any safer than you were before,” he said. “You have to look at every point of entry into a company and secure it against the uninvited, whether its your front door or whether its your IT network.”

Mr. Geddes said counter-terrorism initiatives could be as simple as improving building access controls or increasing physical securitysteps a company should be taking anyway. “Something as simple as bomb film for windows can protect a company against enormous costs,” he said.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, April 15, 2002. Copyright 2002 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.