It’s time to focus on crisis management

mumbai: imagine this: it's 10:10 am and you're gradually settling down in your day's chores at office. suddenly, the phone rings. ''there's a bomb inside your office premises,'' an unidentified caller mutters into your left ear before abruptly disconnecting the line. if this seems like a scene straight out of a hollywood thriller, listen to this. recently, an uncannily similar scene was witnessed by the ceo's office of a leading television channel based in andheri.what followed after the call was near-mayhem with the channel staffers being asked to evacuate the premises in the shortest possible time. inevitably, the local police was summoned, who in turn, called the specialists with sniffer dogs. although the police later declared the call to be a hoax, the question doing the rounds of the industry is: what if such a call is for real? while various alternatives are still being discussed at bureaucratic breakfasts, india inc. has already taken a step forward. instead of paying mere lip-service, leading indian corporates have started the ball rolling by actioning items on security agenda on a priority basis. most of them have formed own specialised protection teams comprising — hold your breath — marshals, the kind that caters to highly skilled emergency operations on aircraft and buildings of national importance. and, in most cases, these marshals are being chosen from among the company's own employees, after imparting them with rigorous state-of-the-art training sessions. leading the pack is bombay house, headquarters of the rs 36,000 crore-tata group where dozens of tata employees are currently being trained to tackle any kind of emergency. says freddy talaty, assistant company secretary of the associated building company, which owns bombay house, ''each of the employees whom we've selected are undergoing rigorous training exercises. once the process is completed, bombay house will be fully geared up to take on any contingency arising out of terrorist attacks, bomb threats or fire.'' following closely behind are several other top-of-the-line firms — standard chartered grindlays bank, jm morgan stanley, lubrizol, le meridien, ilfs and marriott renaissance. although the list is exhaustive, most of the corporates refused to be named. ''it's a highly sensitive issue with threats and rumours emerging every now and then after the world trade centre attacks on september 11. we've decided not to disclose details of security arrangements for all our offices in india,'' says the all-india security head of one company. security experts said that the primary focus of these corporates is the evacuation of their own staff in the shortest possible time in an emergency. ''previously, most corporates were a bit complacent since an emergency mostly meant a fire inside the building. but now, nobody wants to take a chance,'' says aneel khanna from topsgrup, a private security firm.