biryker的部落格

What do Tylenol, New Coke, Jack-in-the-Box, Bag Leaf Spinach, Katrina and the World Trade Center have in common$%: They were all disasters. More specifically, they were all business disasters, and the outcomes of each of these disasters was completely dependent on managing needs and resources.

But what does triage have to do with business$%:

If a business is doing well, absolutely nothing.

However, in a global economy where labor is cheaper for "the big boys" overseas and markets are flooded with less expensive goods, where disgruntled employees or other malcontents take out their frustration on a business directly or its customers there are few businesses that do not regularly suffer a disaster. The problem is, they don't know how to recognize one when it comes.

The first lesson from the disaster field office are the definitions: a disaster is when your needs exceed your resources. It's a simple mathematic equation:

Disaster = Needs :%$gt; Resources

A catastrophe is when your needs exceed all ability to respond. Again, it's a simple mathematical equation:

Catastrophe = Needs :%$gt; Ability to Respond.

Resiliency is defined in many ways. One definition is even of a book on the subject, Mastery Against Adversity (Disaster Life Support Publishing, 2007). But the simplest definition is that resiliency is the opposite of disaster. It is when your resources exceed your needs, or mathematically:
Resilience = Resources :%$gt; Needs.

The second lesson from the disaster field office is every business must have resilience to survive its disaster.

The third lesson from the disaster field office is that there are acceptable losses. Several years ago when New York City suffered its most recent blackout Arnie, who owned a small convenience store and ice creamery faced a business triage decision. With the power out he had ten flavors of ice cream in the cabinet that would soon melt. At 5 gallons per flavor there was slightly less than 50 gallons of ice cream up front. This was a small loss, but it would be compounded by the fact that he had over 100 gallons of ice cream in the back.

Arnie knew that he had a disaster on his hands. His needs (refrigerator) exceeded his resources (electricity). Arnie needed to make a simple triage decision. He had to decide where he could focus his efforts and his remaining resources so that his business would in fact reopen when the power came back on. He also needed to plan for as short a recover as possible. It takes a lot of effort to get rid of over 100 gallons of ice cream and a lot of dumpster space. The clean-up would be horrendous and if the disaster lingered too long his store would be filled with stench of sour milk and rotting ice cream.

Arnie ran a neighborhood store and his customers had already been in to purchase what he had on hand. With an old cigar box he had given up his computerized register and was going business "the old fashioned way". But what to do with the ice cream$%:

Arnie doesn't know if he was the first store owner to think of it, but in the sweltering heat Arnie struck upon an idea, give it away. After all, what would he be losing$%: The product would be ruined before refrigeration could be returned. So he simply gave away the ice cream. A small handmade sign in the window soon drew people in off the street. "Free Ice Cream.

In no time he had a line. He was giving away the ice cream, but what to hold it in$%: Ice cream cones! The cones were actually cheaper than Styrofoam cups, and Styrofoam have an unlimited shelf life. Would the ice cream cones go bad during the blackout$%: No, but you can't give people ice cream in their hand, and the small loss in the cost of ice cream cones was less than the larger loss than the cost of Styrofoam cups.

To Arnie's amazement, many people tried to pay him for the ice cream. Wanting to get rid of it as quickly as possible, before it all went bad and he had to carry it out back where it would create a horrendous stench, he simply refused. To his greater amazement people began to buy other items in the store, items that in all likelihood he would not have been able to sell at that moment in time simply because before the free ice cream sign he didn't have many customers. Before he had given away all the ice cream, Arnie found that his store shelves were bare and his cigar box overflowing. His acceptable loss, the ice cream, had gained him an unexpected profit.

But that's not the end of Arnie's story. The power came back on and Arnie was re