The latest London terrorist outrage, saw a B&Q branded Hertz rental van used as a weapon as part of the attack. The B&Q branding was clearly visible in the press coverage and the companies were named in reports.
While neither company could have been in any way responsible for the terrorists’ actions, the sad fact is their vehicle was used in the attack. This association has the potential to raise concerns around security and customer vetting procedures. Just how easy is it, for anyone to walk in off the street and hire a large vehicle? And how much financial and reputational damage does association with terrorism, organised crime, espionage or sabotage do to an organisation?
The terrorist attacks in London, Nice, Berlin and Stockholm all featured rented or hijacked, commercial vehicles used as the weapon, rather than the weapon delivery means. This trend has resulted in the police and security services taking steps to raise awareness among the transport industry as to the importance of creating a more secure organisation.
The Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) – an organisation accountable to the director general of MI5 – has produced a ‘Passport to Good Security’. It outlines the key principles for a more secure organisation. It says good security protects the people, reputation and profitability of an organisation and the guide contains best practice to help create an effective risk management strategy, which identifies, assesses and mitigates threats a business might face.
Any involvement or association with crime or a terrorist attack will have a direct impact on the staff of the company involved and potentially be damaging to the business. Guidance issued at a recent security briefing Junction Media attended in London said:
“If employees are harmed, there will be fear, feelings of blame and an effect on people’s performance. Employees will ask difficult questions. Some might not turn up for work. Companies need a plan to deal with this. Customers will want to know what happened and may be concerned about associating with your brand. They might want to know if you were in any way to blame and may fear a lack of security makes you unsuitable to continue as a supplier. Any disruption to your operation, and there would be, may affect your ability to meet contractual obligations and they could find you in breach. You need a contingency plan that covers all these eventualities.”
“A communications plan is a key part of any risk management strategy. Staff must be told not to discuss a sensitive situation and any information they have must be treated as confidential as this could impact on any police investigation. Customers must not get information about your involvement second hand. And most importantly do not engage on social media.”
“The press will be camped outside your door, within minutes of the story breaking. Take professional crisis PR advice. Don’t talk to them for the sake of it and if you do make a statement what you say is what you mean. Before talking to the press, check with the police what you can reveal.”
Security is everyone’s responsibility. Awareness, vigilance and having a strong security culture with both soft and hard measures will go a long way to helping detect, deter or delay terrorist activity or an attack and deny them a safe operating environment. Being prepared as a business for the unlikely event of being directly involved in an attack, will mitigate its effect. And businesses have some legal obligation under health and safety law to plan for such eventualities.
