Swift reveals its crisis contingency strategy

Swift head of events Panos Tzivanidis has revealed the financial institution's crisis management strategy for events.

Speaking at the C&IT Corporate Forum at Chewton Glen today, Tzivanidis outlined the procedure it has followed to minimise the damage done to Swift's events by the recession, swine flu and extreme weather events.

Tzivanidis said that to minimise the impact of crises on its events, Swift followed the following steps:

• Identify the crisis
• Define who will be affected by the crisis
• Analyse the impact of the crisis on stakeholders
• Anticipate how the crisis will run its course from start to finish
• Handle the communications and operational management of the crisis

He said that Swift minimised damage done to its Sibos event last year, which coincided with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, by having its events team replace speakers who had to leave to deal to the collapse with existing delegates at the event.

Swift also successfully ran this year's Sibos event in the midst of a severe typhoon in Hong Kong because it had worked 18 months in advance on a contingency plan to combat such an extreme weather event.

"We worked with the authorities, the police and the venue in Hong Kong for 18 months to work out what we would do if there was a typhoon during the event and we had special insurance to cover transport disruption," he said. "This meant that we were able to put in place alternative transport to get delegates between their hotels and the venue."

"Talking to our shareholders has proved to be the solution in every one of the crises that we have faced with our events," he said.