With such a huge potential impact, and with constant reminders of the growing likelihood of a pandemic, businesses worldwide are now searching for the best way to deal with this emerging threat. Regardless of the specific organization or industry, it is our recommendation that a pandemic strategy include four components.

1. A crisis management plan and process that includes a well-educated Crisis Management Team is critical to pandemic planning. This team must be positioned to make decisions on behalf of the organization and implement risk management and risk reduction strategies on an as-needed basis. A key element of this process is a well-thought out crisis communications strategy – a strategy that maintains constant, two-way communication with all of the organization’s stakeholders.
2. Related to the crisis management plan, an escalation plan with defined triggers to implement risk management and risk reduction strategies is a key element of a pandemic preparedness strategy.
3. Third, a series of risk management strategies should be created and resourced before an event occurs so they are readily available to the Crisis Management Team during the initial stages of a pandemic.
4. Finally, beyond developing and documenting strategies and plans, exercising these new threat-specific plans is important, as is rolling out awareness activities.