BUSINESS CONTINUITY AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT IN

OPERATION AT EUROTUNNEL

EUGENIA DOROTHY NAA AYELE MARCELLS

MSc FINANCE AND RISK MANAGEMENT

LONDON SCHOOL OF BUISNESS AND FINANCE

MANCHESTER CAMPUS
UNITED KINGDOM
“Giving up the illusion that you can predict the future is a very
liberating moment. All you can do is give yourself the capacity
to respond to the only certainty in life – which is uncertainty.
The creation of that capability is the purpose of strategy”.
Lord John Browne, Former Group Chief Executive of BP
 TABLE OF CONTENT

Abstract

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Background 1

1.2 Purpose of paper 1

1.3 Objective of paper 2

2. Literature Review 2

2.1 Background 2

2.2 Definition of BCCM 3

2.3 BCCM Framework 3

2.4 BCCM Lifecycle 4

2.5 Discussion 7

3. Conclusion 8

4. Recommendation 9

5. Glossary 9

6. References 10
Abstract
Eurotunnel’s sixteen years of successful operation, indicating strong business
continuity and crisis management for the past, was put to test in December 2009.
There was evidence that it had structures and processes in place to deal with any
crisis that happened. These structures and processes fell short of preventing a crisis
of delayed customer evacuation and provision of safety and comfort to passengers,
when successive break downs of five trains happened within a short period of time.
Eurotunnel failed to achieve thirty minutes evacuation standard or goal agreed with
the UK government in case of any breakdown of trains in the Channel Tunnel.

1.0 Introduction
1.1Background

Eurotunnel is managed and operated by Groupe Eurotunnel SA which is listed on

both the London Stock Exchange and the Euronext Paris. It operates and maintains
the 50 kilometres long Channel tunnel, which links Great Britain to France. Its
services apart from the management of the Channel Tunnel infrastructure, involves
the operation of shuttle trains which convey cars as well as trains which convey
heavy goods vehicles between the UK terminal at Folkestone and Frethun in France
(www.eurotunnelgroup.com).

Eurotunnel has operated the Channel Tunnel with success for the past sixteen years
and have won fifty eight awards to attest to its outstanding performance in various
areas. These awards have ranged from quality of service, safety, employment and
training, railway operations, civil engineering, communication and environmental
commitment (www.eurotunnel.com).

Eurotunnel’s sixteen years success story was put to test in December 2009 when
five Eurostar trains broke down in the Channel Tunnel. This attested to the fact that
any company be they private, public, profit or not-for-profit; providing goods or
services to their customers can be faced with the possibilities of disruptions ranging
from mere inconvenience and short lived disruption of operations to the very failure
of their ability to deliver their products and / or services.

1.2 Purpose of paper

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the business continuity and
crises management in operation at Eurotunnel citing the incident of December 2009
in which five Eurostar trains broke down in the Channel Tunnel.

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1.3 Objective of paper

The objectives of this paper are as follows:

 The role played by effective business continuity and crisis management

(BCCM) in a modern organization
 Analysis of a BCCM framework
 Show the local response of an organization in the context of a global BCCM
plan
 Critically review a BCCM plan.

2.0 Literature Review

2.1 Background

Over the last twenty years, a lot of crises have covered the globe in such intensity
that it makes it very critical for all organizations to prepare themselves for the
unthinkable. Preparing for such disruptions should be seen as a critical part of
strategy for any organization and should be shared by all, in the daily tasks towards
the achievement of an organization’s goals.

Different organizations use different terminologies to describe this function. ASIS

International based in the United States of America use the term ‘business continuity
management (BCM) or business continuity planning (BCP)’ whilst the Business
Continuity Institute based in the United Kingdom use the term ‘business continuity
management’.

The need for an effective BCCM is now an essential and integral business activity
with a variety of drivers: to recover quickly from a crises, to demonstrate to
stakeholders with evidence that the business is resilient and that it follows best
practice, to operate through an incident irrespective of the cause or scale, to meet
legal, regulatory and contractual obligations, to meet moral and social responsibilities
and to meet the growing requirement of insurers to provide evidence of risk
management. (www.talkingbusinesscontinuity.com) which confirms the benefits
indicated by Deloitte that “an effective business continuity programme provides
widespread benefits to organizations by: improving awareness about threats and
vulnerabilities, better protecting people, protecting reputation and shareholder value,
improving supply chain resilience, determining and protecting time-critical business
processes, meeting customer and regulatory demands, accelerating effective
decision-making in a crisis, improving the ability to respond to major incidents
effectively and safely and providing a better case when negotiating business
interruption insurance premiums” (www.deliotte.be).

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2.2 Definition of BCCM

BCCM is defined as “the business management practices that provide the focus and
guidance for the decisions and actions necessary for a business to prevent, mitigate,
prepare for, respond to, resume, recover, restore and transition from a disruptive
(crisis) event in a manner consistent with its strategic objectives” (Shaw and Harrald
2004).

A clearer definition is “A holistic management process that identifies potential threats

to an organization and the impacts to business operations that those threats, if
realized, might cause, and which provides a framework for building organizational
resilience with the capability for an effective response that safeguards the interest of
its key stakeholders, reputation, brand and value-creating activities” (BS 25999-1).

2.3 BCCM Framework

As Shaw (2004) indicated, organizational functions supporting business disruption,

prevention, preparedness, response and recovery such as risk management,
contingency planning, crises management, emergency response and business
resumption and recovery can individually contribute to the protection of the
organization and its goals. However for the effective and efficient achievement of
these goals, it is imperative that these functions be integrated and coordinated into a
comprehensive program of BCCM. The BCCM framework should be very clear and
easy to understand by all stakeholders from shareholders through to all the staff
levels as well as suppliers and customers.

The framework as shown in figure 1 displays a hierarchy of functions from the top to
the bottom as well as the temporal nature of each function from the left across to the
right. Each of these functions operates either before, during or after the crisis or run
through from before during and after the crisis.

Enterprise management, crisis management, knowledge management, programme

implementation and systems monitoring operates throughout; from before the crisis,
during the crisis and after the crisis. Functions like risk management, planning,
awareness, training and exercising need to be in operation before any crisis occurs,
while incident management and incident response should operate during the crisis.
Crisis communication, business continuity including business recovery and
resumption as well as the restoration and transition should be in operation during
and after the crisis.

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 Figure 1

Business Crisis and Continuity management Framework

2.4 BCCM Lifecycle

BCCM planning is the creation and validation of a practiced logistical plan for how an
organization will recover and restore partially or completely interrupted critical
functions, within a predetermined time after a crisis. A completed BCCM plan results
in a formal printed manual available for reference before, during and after
disruptions. Its purpose is to reduce adverse stakeholder impacts determined by
both the disruption’s scope and duration.

BCCM planning involves six elements which make up the BCCM lifecycle (BS25999-
1). The holistic BCCM lifecycle as defined in figure 2 has at its core, the foundations
of BCCM programme management. This is followed by four key stages that focus on
implementation and maintenance: Understanding the organization, determining the

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BCCM strategy, developing and implementing the BCCM response and exercising,
maintaining and reviewing the BCCM programme. Critical to making all this happen,
is the need for embedding BCCM in the organization’s culture.

A BCCM system needs to be established within the organization to manage the

entire BCCM program. This requires the management of organizations to
demonstrate their commitment to BCCM. There is also a need to establish and
implement a business continuity policy and to provide the necessary resources to
implement the required activities. There is also a need to communicate the existence
and importance of the system across the organization and for periodic planned
reviews to ensure that the activities are implemented according to plan and found to
be effected.

Figure 2

BCCM lifecycle

Understanding the organization is a key element of BCCM and the foundation work
from which the whole process is built. Undertaking a business impact analysis (BIA)
and risk assessment (RA) will enable one identify the critical business functions of an
organization and study the risk should these functions be disrupted, to build the
organization’s BCM capability. BIA involves the determination of critical activities
supporting the organization’s key products and services, the impact due to disruption
of these activities, the recovery time frames and the recovery priority, the

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interdependencies, and the continuity requirements and resources such as staff,
work facilities, supporting technology, plant and equipment. RA requires the
organization to examine the risk of disruptions to critical activities, in terms of
understanding the threats, vulnerabilities, and to document the impact associated
with the identified threats and vulnerabilities. Once the risks are assessed, the
organizations also need to make appropriate choices to mitigate the risks. After
assessing the threats facing the critical activities, the organization needs to
determine and implement appropriate response measures. These typically are
considered under the “4T” (Treat, Tolerate, Transfer and Terminate) or TARA
(Transfer, Avoid, Reduce and Accept) module.

Determining the BCCM strategy is to identify and study the different strategic options
to recover an organization’s critical functions, to an acceptable level of business
continuity within a reasonable recovery time, should disaster strike. It also includes
determining continuity strategies for organizational resources such as people,
premises, technology, information, supplies and stakeholders necessary for the
resumption of the business. Familiarization with local emergency services as well as
an understanding of global BCCM best practices helps the organization to select the
appropriate strategies and tactics for various events.

Developing and implementing a BCCM response is probably the most important

stage of the cycle. It involves the preparation and the documentation of plans to deal
with incidents, and how it will recover or maintain its activities to a pre-determined
level in the event of a disruption. Typically, these are the incident management plan
(IMP) and the business continuity plan (BCP). The IMP is a clearly defined plan of
action for use at the time of an incident, typically covering the key personnel,
resources, services and actions needed to implement the incident management
process. This plan should set out the arrangements for communicating with staff,
wider stakeholders and if necessary the media. The BCP is a documented collection
of procedures and information that is developed, compiled, and maintained in
readiness for use in various incidents to enable an organization to continue to deliver
its critical activities at an acceptable pre-defined level. This plan typically includes the
action plans and task lists in order of priority and resource requirements.

Exercising, maintaining and reviewing the BCCM program ensures the effectiveness,
validity and workability of the BCCM program through continuous improvement.
Exercise refers to the constant training and rehearsal of team members on the
procedures and processes documented in the BCP. The fundamental purpose of
doing so is to ensure that the business continuity arrangements are validated
periodically and improvements incorporated on a continual basis. Maintenance refers
to the act of refining and updating the procedures and processes on a periodic basis
to ensure that these remain relevant over time. The need for review of the entire
BCCM program by top management is to ensure that the arrangements put in place
are suitable, adequate and effective to meet on-going needs.

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To ensure the success of the BCCM programs, organizations need to ensure that
BCCM is properly established into the corporate culture and day-to-day operations.
This means that all the staff should have sufficient awareness of their roles and
receive appropriate training on how to handle special assignments. When the
personnel understand and accept their BCM functions, the probability of an
organization surviving disasters increases.

Wilder 2008 indicated that the BCCM plan includes the identification of all Business
Critical Function and/ or Supporting Services (BCFS) and their associated risks to
business as well as the appropriate resources to help with the execution of
safeguarding and restoring each BCFS; the processes, procedures, actions, tasks
and/ or steps used to reduce the risk identified for the various likely scenarios at
each business location; identification of all locations included, along with any sub-
plans needed to provide adequate coverage for each risk to be reduced; a clear
communication process to identify, evaluate, declare and recover from most typical
causes to loss of service delivery capability or disaster that includes all required
resources, roles, locations, with information publication types and guidelines and the
process for BCCM plans updates, organizational awareness, training and periodic
validation testing.

Generally, there are six different types of plan that will be drawn: the master plan,
communication plan, site or facility plans, sub-plans and contingency plans. .

2.5 Discussion

On the night of 18th and and early hours of 19th of December, there was heavy
snowfall and five Eurostar trains, travelling to UK from Brussels, Paris and Marne-la-
vallee (Disneyland , Paris) broke down in the Channel Tunnel. The first train which
broke down was quickly recovered, but the other four which broke down in rapid
succession, could not be recovered like the initial one. Passengers from two of those
trains were evacuated onto Eurotunnel passenger shuttles within the tunnel.
Eurotunnel, afterwards then had the chance to attend to a thousand cars belonging
to Eurotunnel passengers, stuck at the Folkestone Terminal as well as three hundred
cars and freight stuck at the Coquelles Terminal. Eurostar then suspended its
service for three days.

Eurostar Independent Review indicated that though the evacuation of the

passengers was safely carried out, passengers went through traumatic conditions
and faced delays in getting to their final destinations. The subsequent suspension of
services also caused disruption to the journeys of passengers. It was very apparent
that Eurostar had “poor or non-existent processes in place to cope not just with the
original crisis but also its subsequent scheduling consequences” (.Solvis Consulting
2010). Eurotunnel on the other hand, had a responsibility of evacuating “all
passengers in a stricken train within thirty minutes” (Lord Berkeley, House of Lords
2010) but allowed delay to creep into its evacuation period resulting in passengers
spending 17 hours in the tunnel without food, water, light or communication (The
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Sydney Morning Herald 2009). The Eurotunnel customer line (08444630000)
provided little information and only redirected customers to the web
(www.eurotunnel.com) to rebook without any update to customers on the situation.
Eurotunnel communication with Eurostar and the passengers was not the best and
contributed to the delay in evacuation of passengers within the thirty minute standard
set for evacuation of passengers. The crisis management of Eurotunnel was also not
prepared for a scenario where trains successively breakdown within a short time so
was only able to deal with the first train to breakdown relatively quickly making their
crisis management wanton when the other four trains joined in within a short period
of time. Eurotunnel was able to resume operation immediately after the evacuation of
the passengers.

3.0 Conclusion
From the above it is evident that Eurotunnel, though it had structures and processes
in place to manage crisis lacked certain spices which made them look inefficient in
their ability to manage this crisis effectively and efficiently.

Eurotunnel failed in its lack of supply chain resilience because it had not in the past
checked the crisis management of its customer, Eurostar, to make sure they have
effective crisis management plans in place.

Eurotunnel had in place an incident management plan in respect of fire and break
down of a train at a particular period. It did not ever imagine that a successive
breakdown of five trains of Eurostar could ever happen and so was not adequately
prepared to support such a disaster. No scenario testing had been done in this
regard therefore.

Eurotunnel did not seem to have consulted other tunnel managers in the continent,
to enquire about their operations during very bad weathers and had relied on the
weather of UK as a standard weather for the operation of the tunnel.

What escalated the situation on that day was the lack of communication between not
only the company and the passengers but also the lack of communication between
Eurotunnel and Eurostar. Their incident management lacked laid down plans for
communication between them. Lack of communication between them and Eurostar
led to their inability to work together to provide safety and comfort to passenger
during the evacuation.

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4.0 Recommendation
Eurotunnel’s BCCM should emphasis on prevention rather than management of
crisis. A wider scenario should also be developed in the business continuity plan to
give way to the unimaginable events. Scenario testing should not be done singularly
by only Eurotunnel staff but in conjunction with Eurostar staff and other users of the
channel to help them get used to working together to achieve safety and comfort for
passengers who they depend on for revenue.

Communication plans should be a critical element of their business continuity plan to

allow communication to all stakeholders during crisis to be very effective thereby
preventing any escalation of crisis when they happen in future.

Eurotunnel should immediately make plans of getting in touch with other operators in
worse or harsher weather condition and strengthen their supply chain resilience to
help with future crisis.

5.0 Glossary
Enterprise Management: The systematic understanding and management of
business operations within the context of the organisation’s culture, beliefs, mission,
objectives and organizational structure.

Crisis Management: The coordination of efforts to control a crisis event

consistent with strategic goals of an organization. Although it is generally associated
with response, recovery and resumption of business operations during and after a
crisis, crisis management responsibilities extend to pre-event mitigation, prevention
and preparedness and post event restoration and transition.

Crisis Communication: All means of communication (internal and external)

of an organization designed and delivered to support the crisis management
function.

Knowledge Management: The acquisition, assurance, representation,

transformation, transfer and ultilisation of information supporting enterprise
management.

Risk Management: The combination of risk assessment, business

area analysis, business impact analysis, risk communication and risk- based
decision making functions to make strategic and tactical decisions as to how to treat
business risk by the use of the 4T’s or the TARA module.

Planning: The development of plans, policies, and

procedures (based upon the results of risk management and enterprise
management) to address the physical and/ or business consequences of residual

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risks which are above the level of acceptance to a business, its assets and its
stakeholders.

Programme Implementation: The implementation and management of specific

programmes such as physical security, cyber security, environmental health,
occupational health and safety etc. that support the BCCM programme within the
context of enterprise management.

Systems Monitoring: Measuring and evaluating programme

performance in the context of the business as an overall system of interrelated parts.

Awareness/Training/Exercising: A structured programme to develop and maintain

individual, team and organizational awareness and preparedness, ranging from
individual and group familiarization and skill based training through full organizational
exercises

Incident Management: The management of operations, logistics,

planning, finance and administration, safety and information flow associated with the
operational response to the consequences of a crisis event .

Incident Response: The tactical reaction to the physical consequences

of a crisis event to protect personnel and property, assess the situation, stabilize the
situation and conduct response operations that support the economic viability of a
business.

Business Continuity: The business specific plans and actions that

enable an organization to respond to a crisis event in a manner that business
functions, sub-functions and processes are recovered and resumed according to
predetermined plan, prioritized by their criticality to the economic viability of the
business.

Restoration and Transition: Plans and actions to restore and transition a

business to ‘new normal’ operations following a crisis event.

6.0 References
Blyth, M (2009) “Business Continuity Management: Building an Effective Incident
Management Plan”

British Standard Institute Code of practice BS25999 part one

Cartland, S (2005) “Global Integrated Supply Chain System: Business Continuity

Challenges in Global Supply Chains” Chapter 19, Idea Group Publishing, UK

Eurotunnel Group Annual Review 2009

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Hiles A, (2010) “The Definitive Handbook of Business Continuity Management” (3 rd
Edition) John Wiley and Sons, UK

Lord Berkeley, (2010)”Question in the house of Lords” Emergency Management

online, January

Lord John Browne, (2010) “BP and BCP” www.continuityinsights.com

McEntire, D (2006) “Disciplines, Disasters and Emergency Management: The

Convergence and Divergence of Concepts, Issues and Trends from the Research
Literature” Electronic Textbook, spring 2006, Department of Public Administration,
University of North Texas

Shaw, G and Harrald, J (2004),”The competences required for executive level

business crisis and continuity managers” Journal of Homeland Security and
Emergency management, USA

Sikich, G (2010) “BP and BCP” Article Continuity Insights 11th January

Sikich,G (2003)”Integrated Business Continuity: Maintaining Resilience In Uncertain

Times” Penwell Books, USA

Smith, D (2002) “Business Continuity Management: Good Practices Guidelines” The

Business Continuity Institute, London.

Wilder D, (2008) “The New Business Continuity Model” White Paper Version 1.0

www.eurotunnelgroup.com

www.eurotunnel.com

www.talkingbusinesscontinuity.com

www.training.fema.gov

www.continuitycentral.com/feature0548.html

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34748541/ns/travel-news/

www.solvisconsulting.co.uk/index.php?page=blog.html

www.news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/eurostar-hits-back-over-safety-lapse-
claims-20091226-lfg4.html

www.news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Business/Eurostar-Accused-Of-PR-Failure-
Passengers-Angered-By-Lack-Of-Updates/Article/200912315505753

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ee1ebcf4-ee54-11de-944c-
00144feab49a.html#axzz1AXSpWKqL

www.emergencymanagement.org.uk/news/Eurostar150210/tabid/4473/Default.aspx

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www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1237595/Eurostar-job-line-amid-Channel-Tunnel-
breakdown-fiasco.html

www.greenbanana.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/winter-blunderland-snow-highlights-
poor-pr-at-eurostar-eurotunnel-and-more/

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