ABSTRACT
Emergency management systems are not only relevant when a real emergency arises, but also serve to prevent them or to prepare for crises and emergency situations. In this way preparatory measures are defined to minimize the impact of sudden emergencies with respect to the core processes of an organisation (administrations, enterprises) and to provide for prompt resumption of normal activities. To arrange and plan these preparations for all eventualities in a suitable manner these processes and the relevant staff and systems have to be identified beforehand.
Besides the pure interest to continue with daily business and therefore existentially to maintain the business as such there are other concrete reasons to conceptualize emergency management. Although there are basically requirements by law for emergency management as such there are in deed legal and contractual obligations resulting from the purpose of an enterprise. These may comprise contractual obligations for the fulfilment of deliveries and services agreed between clients and an enterprise. In certain classes of business, the necessity for such measures are deduced from other laws. This is the case for example for banks but also for corporations listed at the stock exchange being controlled by laws guaranteeing transparency. These corporations have to comply to risk management. Furthermore, there are other laws making emergency management a necessity (work safety, financing etc.)
In a nutshell emergency management can be defined as follows: Emergency Management is a sys-tematic approach oriented on business processes to limit exceptional circumstances and to limit the effect of damages arising from unforeseen external and internal impact.
