POSTAL SECURITY, ANTHRAX AND BEYOND 105

Postal Security, Anthrax and beyond Europe's Posts and the Critical Network Challenge: Lessons from the Anthrax

Case to Meet Future Challenges

Martin Hagenbourger*, Patrick Lagadec** and Marc Pouw***

La Poste's chairman, Mr Vial, was in New York revealed. Clearly, a new area of risks and when he heard the news: According to AFP, two potential crises had emerged. As a result both persons had been infected with anthrax in the structure and culture of systems safety and Germany, Europe's first confirmed cases in the crisis preparedness had to be revisited. mail-bourn terrorist scare of autumn 2001. He PostEurop has considerable experience in get- immediately tried to get in touch with his ting its members to tackle tough issues that can counterpart at Deutsche Post, to no avail. He affect them all. This case was just another difficult was also unable to get a hold of the head of Royal challenge to meet. But when such a challenging Mail. Unfortunately, the news came on November issue emerges the process has to contain a mix of 2, part of a long weekend holiday in much of numerous ingredients. A number of coordinated Europe. Mr Vial had to settle for a conference call and well designed initiatives created a key drive to with a few of the staff members at La Poste who the process. The determination of several public were working that day. Tension remained high postal operators to put the issue on the agenda until 8:30 p.m. that evening, when AFP finally and to work hard on a benchmarking project gave announced that its earlier report had proved false. the initial impulse. The intellectual input to clarify For an industry such as the postal sector, being the challenge as well as general support coming able to work together in times of crisis is crucial. from public postal operators throughout the Each day millions of letters and parcels are shipped continent and a strong innovative coordination across borders in Europe. As worries of contam- capacity at European level was put in place. And, ination spread from the U.S. to Asia, Europe, and last but not least, the direct cooperation of USPS, around the globe, it became clear to everyone, and directly confronted to the most severe front of this not just those in the postal industry, just how crisis, as well as other organisations such as the interconnected the global postal network truly is. Universal Postal Union and CERP. PostEurop members and officers, of course, The most important factor contributing to have long been aware of the interconnectedness success and of benefit to any complex interna- of the operators. This interconnectedness can tional network confronted to such emerging bring benefits, as when we are able to suggest to threats with a potentially debilitating industry- wide impact, is sharing experiences on that very *Martin Hagenbourger, LA our members common solutions to common POSTE Siège social 44, boule- problems. But the anthrax crisis has also shown rich process launched in response to the crisis. vard de Vaugirard, CP F 603 the flip side of the coin. This is the guiding principle of this paper, which 75757 PARIS, CEDEX. E-mail: As fears of contamination spread beyond the focuses on the crucial issue, the global process of [email protected] being prepared for crises, and not only the specific **Patrick Lagadec, École Poly- U.S., posts acted individually in drawing up their technique, Laboratoire d’Econ- contingency planning. But, although some in- (national) results of crises on an individual basis. ométrie, 1 Rue Descartes, 75005 formal contacts had been established among Paris, France crisis managers, no co-ordinated effort had been http://ceco.polytechnique.fr/ CHERCHEURS/LAGADEG'; made to deal with the crisis at the European An international initiative stemming http://www.patricklagadec.net level. The first lesson was self-evident: The post from an international threat ***Marc Pouw, Secretary Gen- industry was prepared for specific, local or eral, Association of European national crises. It was not for international If anthrax spores had managed to cross the Postal Operators, Rue de la interconnected crises. A lack of co-ordination Fusée 100, B-1130 Brussels, Atlantic, either through terrorist designs or Belgium. E-mail: and effective communications planning was because of cross-contamination during sortine, [email protected]

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European posts would have had a delicate It must be emphasised that after any crisis, the situation on their hands. One of their chief temptation is to focus exclusively on that event. concerns would have been ensuring the safety of PostEurop's conference intended to show that this their employees and the customers they serve, is not enough, and that it can even be dangerously while seeking to minimise the disruption to a misleading. The crucial objective is to grasp the vital part of the economic motor. Moreover, in overall lessons that are linked to the underlying France employees are legally entitled to stop challenge, not to the self-evident tactical difficul- work if they have strong fears of immediate and ties of the specific event. The old dictum ever severe threats.. This would have made it ex- present in the minds of crisis managers, "never be tremely difficult to keep postal operations run- a crisis behind," has to be recalled. ning. Unfortunately, even though the alerts Accordingly, it was felt that participants should proved false, the system was terribly affected. be encouraged to share their thoughts and In April 2002, La Poste organised a national suggestions for improving the European postal debriefing led by the French public postal industry's collective ability to respond to future operator (see Mr Hagenbourger's contribution). crises. The ultimate goal of the conference was to One of the conclusions of this debriefing was that gather such ideas and to serve as the launch pad it is urgent to set up an international planning for concrete initiatives that would strengthen the and immediate response capacity. The idea for a ability of PostEurop's members to communicate European conference meeting on postal security and handle whatever contingencies may lie ahead. can be traced back directly to Mr Vial's experi- ence in November 2001. The objective was to A European project: PostEurop's ensure that never again Europe's posts would be

at a loss to respond readily to a new crisis, powerful involvement especially one that could paralyse the entire PostEurop has a decade-long history of bringing European postal network. together European public postal operators to talk At La Poste senior management was deter- about matters that concern them all. Over the years mined to act quickly, launching initiatives with it focused members' attention on diverse issues, their colleagues in other countries and PostEur- from EU enlargement to funding opportunities op, an association whose membership at the time available from the UPU (Universal Postal Union) encompassed 42 public postal operators across and to making the most out of new technologies. Europe. Experts in public health issues would So when approached by La Poste with the idea of also be involved as well as experts in the area of organising a conference on postal security, Post- managing emerging crises. Europ was quick to express its interest. In June 2002, La Poste submitted a proposal to Their members cover an immense territory, PostEurop's Management Board, suggesting over 23 million sq. km., stretching from the holding a conference on the theme of postal Atlantic across to the Pacific. Many of their security. A conference bringing together crisis members exchange a large share of their inter- management and security experts from all these national mail with their European counterparts, postal operators, would offer an excellent occa- and for some of smaller members international sion to exchange views on what different posts mail can represent a large portion of total mail had learned from the anthrax crisis as well as on flows. It is in their interest, that they be able to what they needed to do to cope better with future work together effectively in the event of a crisis, emergencies. The objectives were multiple: and at PostEurop we have considerable experi- • first, to share experiences and lessons from the ence in providing their members' staffs with anthrax crisis; opportunities to network with each other.. The • secondly, to share ideas and proposals to utility of these networking opportunities has improve the collective management of such been demonstrated in many other areas. The emerging threats; anthrax scares in Europe pointed to how useful this could be in the context of postal safety and • thirdly, to establish a European crisis manage- security as well. It was quickly agreed that the ment capacity enabling crisis managers in public best way to proceed would be to hold a postal operators to network with their counter- conference in Paris. The date was chosen: one parts and with other international and year after the peak of the crisis, on 27-28 European organisations, using a common November 2002. • platform. Furthermore: while the anthrax crisis was a good Global dynamics for a groundbreaking starting point for discussions, the conference collective initiative would go much further. The challenge was not anthrax per se, but the emergence of a whole The objective was not to organise another new profile of crises. conference providing some ready-made crisis

Volume 11 Number 3 September 2003 POSTAL SECURITY, ANTHRAX AND BEYOND 107

management recipes. La Poste and PostEurop Patrick Lagadec, Arjen Boin, Werner Overdijk) united their efforts to launch a collective move in was set up to help in preparing the conference. order to stimulate common efforts. As is well Their task was to help incorporate what crisis known, what matters is the process, not just the management experts in the field have already results, and planning involves more than putting learned elsewhere, providing conference parti- plans down on paper. Getting people is crucial cipants with current vision of the issues at for collective intelligence and successful innova- stake. Erwann Michel Kerjan, from the Whar- tion. This perspective lead to a wide-spread ton School of Business in the United States effort: was asked to clarify the US advances in the areas of critical infrastructure and emerging • La Poste sent out a questionnaire to its global crises. European counterparts to find out more about their experiences and expectations. • PostEurop brought support to reach members and to bring experts and official involvement. • Several representatives from European public postal operators were invited to talk about their experiences during the anthrax crisis: J.A. Representatives from 30 public postal operators Rasink, TPG Post, The Netherlands; Edith came to Paris in late November 2002 to share Pfeifer, Deutsche Post AG, Germany; Chris their experiences, to suggest new avenues for Babbs, Royal Mail, United Kingdom ; Martin research arid to launch a debate on new Hagenbourger, La Poste, France. operational capabilities. Novel crisis situations require high-le\-el involvement which explains • Thomas Day, vice president of the U.S. Postal why international organisations such as the Service, was also approached and invited to Universal Postal Union, CERP (Comité Européen the conference to provide a first-hand account de Régulation Postale) as well as USPS (United of what it was like on the front lines in dealing States Postal Service) were present at the the attacks and their aftermath. conference. Mr Thomas Day, Vice-Président of • In addition, the organizing team met with USPS, accepted to cross over the Atlantic to give European speakers and experts in advance. the vivid testimony from the directed affected This was necessary to set in motion a common country. approach and framework for dealing with the Finally, as had been determined during the issue. The objective was not only to obtain a preparations for the conference, it was felt series of presentation, but to construct a important to put down together the main ideas common dynamics—for the conference itself in writing. That was the idea of a special issue in and, more important, for the outcome and this journal. Again, the objective is to disseminate follow-up after the conference. In crisis pre- the experiences, to learn from them and to share paredness, networking is vital, and this aspect our best practices. That has resulted in this was thoroughly integrated into the planning special issue: several papers focused on the main for the conference. lessons to clarify the whole stake and to suggest • A small team including specialists in crisis the key perspectives which need to be developed management (affiliated with the European to meet the new emerging challenges in the area Crisis Management European Academy-ECMA: of risks, crises and critical networks.

Volume 11 Number 3 September 2003