My name is Dermot Vibert. I work with Rio Tinto Japan. On March 11, 2011 I was in our office when we were hit by an extremely strong earthquake. Among the many issues we faced immediately after the earthquake was what would we do on the Monday morning when we had to supposedly return to the office and recommence business. What caused this issue to arise and why is it important? B) Causes
Identify the importance of the Causes to the organisation concerned. What Caused these
Issues to arise? The reasons underlying the Issues will be explicit in the Causes identified.

The earthquake in the afternoon of March 11 was, although it struck 520 kilometers from Tokyo, it was an extremely strong one for us in Tokyo. The buildings shook severely two or three times, and then many, many times thereafter because of the aftershocks. On at least two occasions we had to go under our desks with our helmets on and literally hold on to the legs of the tables. It was that strong. The earthquake knocked out a lot of the power system, and as a result the trains were not able to function normally, and because there was not enough power as well, things like traffic lights, lights in buildings, etc., all these things were affected. There were many unknowns such as what damage there really was in the Tokyo area, for how long would trains not be running, would there be adequate food in two or three days time, what was going to happen with fuel supply, because when we were watching on television, one of the spectacular scenes we saw was a gas terminus on fire in the Tokyo Bay area, so we had a lack of information, and as a result there were many many uncertainties. We did not know if we could go home that day or not. In the end most of us did not go home. We stayed and had travel the next day. It just was not a situation conducive to running a business in a normal environment.

http://m2m.riotinto.com/issue/6/article/50-year-friendship
Cooperation and understanding

In a world that is constantly evolving across political frameworks, social structures and markets, strong cultural ties are an important part of business relationships. When the devastating earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 2011, Rio Tinto supported customers affected by the disaster, adjusting deliveries as required, and donated 100 million yen to Red Cross efforts.
Rio Tinto also supplied boric acid to Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant, which was badly damaged in the earthquake. Boric acid – produced from the borate minerals Rio Tinto mines and processes in California – can be used to prevent the fission of nuclear fuel rods.
The company has continued to support its friends and neighbours in Japan in the aftermath of the disaster. Together with Komatsu, Rio Tinto has set up a 400 million yen, ten-year scholarship for Tohoku University students who would otherwise have found it difficult to continue their studies.
Rio Tinto is also supporting the ARTS for HOPE disaster relief project, including through voluntary work by its employees from the Tokyo office. The programme uses hands-on art activities as a way of helping children through the trauma of what they experienced in the earthquake.
And in July 2014, the company announced that a new Rio Tinto Chair of Australia-Japan studies would be established at the University of Tokyo, which, in the words of Sam Walsh, will “generate greater cooperation and understanding between our two countries”.
From its commercial heart to its community spirit, Rio Tinto’s multi-faceted partnership with Japan is far-reaching today, and also focused on how it can grow even further and stronger in the future.
As Nobi Yamaji, president of Rio Tinto Japan sums up: “The strength of Rio Tinto’s relationship with Japan is the result of the long-term commitment we have to one another.
Together we’ve been through good times and also through tough times, but throughout we’ve continued to demonstrate just how deeply we value our status as a supplier, a customer, a business partner − and indeed a friend − to Japan.
“Over the last 50 years, we’ve established robust relationships with our Japanese stakeholders based on fairness, transparency and mutual respect. By working hard every day to earn the privilege of being the partner of choice for Japanese industry today, we aim to remain so for the next 50 years as well.” http://www.riotinto.com/sustainabledevelopment2011/governance/business_resilience.html Business resilience in action in Japan
Following the earthquake and subsequent tsunami on 11 March 2011 in Japan, Rio Tinto Japan assembled its business resilience team. The first priority was the safety of staff in Tokyo. However, the continuing aftershocks, threat of new tsunamis and a growing problem of nuclear contamination continued to create a great deal of uncertainty for most of Japan.
To ensure employees and their families were safe and to see what help could be provided to our key customers and suppliers, Rio Tinto sent additional resilience team members to support the Tokyo office. These members leveraged the newly-established business resilience and recovery programmer to marshal specialist resources from across the company.
This was demonstrated when public safety fears grew to very high levels about the effects of radioactive contamination of the public water supply. Panic buying of bottled water to supply household needs created national shortages of bottled water. The Rio Tinto team arranged for additional water to be sent but also sent a radiation specialist from the Energy Resources of Australia mine to give practical advice to employees and their families.
In addition to supporting our people, the learning gained from supporting customers and suppliers enabled Rio Tinto Japan to identify important synergies that have improved our business.

Introduction
Our operations could face a range of incidents that may threaten our business. While it is impossible to predict every kind of incident we could face, we have adopted a Group-wide business resilience and recovery approach to address a range of possible events.
This approach brings together our collective experience to protect our people, the environment, our assets and our reputation. It is an essential part of an effective management system that aims to prevent or manage risk and the consequences associated with these events.
Approach
As a responsible mining and metals organisation that operates in a diverse range of environments and locations, Rio Tinto must be prepared to manage the consequences of a range of different incidents. These might include: * Natural disasters * Environmental disasters * Terrorist acts * Major fire/explosions * Aircraft incidents * Loss of communications/information systems/technology * Health issues/widespread illness or pandemic * Major asset/property damage * Major market disruption
Business resilience draws together emergency response, business continuity and information technology disaster recovery plans into a single coordinated framework called the business resilience and recovery programme (BRRP). The BRRP requires our operations to allocate appropriate resources, including trained personnel, facilities and equipment, to effectively mitigate, control and recover from a major or catastrophic incident.
Every site is required to provide emergency response and business resilience teams that are rehearsed and prepared. Each site business resilience team is supported by their regional or country business resilience teams, who in turn are supported by the corporate business resilience team. The incident is escalated to the appropriate level to ensure the best strategy is being applied by the right teams with the right resources.
The BRRP is the responsibility of our Global Security team, which works together with colleagues in Health, Safety, Environment & Communities (HSEC) to embed the programme into the culture of Rio Tinto through a series of training activities and exercises.
Results
The work to transition from previous disaster preparedness programmes to the new BRRP began in late 2010. The BRRP was activated in January 2011 with the first business resilience team being formed in response to the Brisbane floods. The almost immediate adoption of the new terms and structures of the BRRP is a reflection of the extensive training and awareness activities that were undertaken by both the Global Security and HSEC teams. Working together, these teams trained over 250 trainers within Rio Tinto at locations in the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia-Pacific.
In March 2011, Rio Tinto’s chief executive sponsored an exercise of the corporate business resilience team. The exercise, simulating a computer hacking type incident gave the organisation a number of valuable lessons that are still being learned from. This senior level support for exercising business resilience led to similar exercises being carried out at all levels of the organisation throughout the year. The new focus on practice exercises has been accompanied with training material and templates. We have seen a marked improvement in the reporting of exercises and the lessons they provide
要求：
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (<300 words required)
Summarise all sections of the report using only the key information. Compose the Executive
Summary after the assignment is complete.
A) Issues
Provide a brief introduction that summarises the main Issues of the case. Issues are the specific problems the business is facing and needs to address. Consider what visible symptoms of the problems identified need to be resolved?

B) Causes
Identify the importance of the Causes to the organisation concerned. What Caused these
Issues to arise? The reasons underlying the Issues will be explicit in the Causes identified.
C) Alternatives
Develop a set of realistic Alternatives to address the Issues and Causes identified. A variety of options or different actions that a company could take to address the Issues and Causes need to be identified. Prevention (dealing with underlying Causes) is usually better than cure (fixing Issues that have arisen). Measuring each Alternative against the Decision Criteria will assist in clearly identifying and selecting the better options as well as less desirable options. D) Decision Criteria
Decision Criteria are the indicators that need to be considered when evaluating and making a decision. Develop a set of Decision Criteria to choose from the Alternative courses of action. These criteria will be used to measure each Alternative available, and decide those to recommend as Solutions, and those to recommend against implementing. Generating expected benefits that would be achieved by resolving the Issues at hand is one way to create Selection Criteria. Conversely, the adverse effects of certain Selection Criteria need to be considered. The expected benefits and drawbacks should be grouped based on underlying themes inherent in the case. This is essentially a logical approach to weighting and ranking relevant data in order to make decisions.5
E) Recommended Solutions
Decide the Solutions to the Issues derived from the Alternatives based upon the Decision
Criteria. For each competing Alternative, justify why different Solutions were chosen or rejected. Recommended Solutions should be the best of the Alternatives identified, as measured by the Decision Criteria. It should be clear to anyone reading the report why specific Alternatives are recommended as Solutions, and why others were rejected. A well written report will allow the company to compare different Alternatives as Solutions, should they disagree with the weightings of the various Decision Criteria.
F) Implementation and Implications
Provide realistic suggestions on how these Solutions could be implemented in the organisation concerned within the industry context being scrutinised. Provide the necessary details on the Implementation for the proposed Solutions. Include the managerial and financial implications for adopting the preferred Solutions. If the organisation implements the recommended Solutions, what might happen to the company? What are the
Implications for adopting each of the Alternatives? What might be the Implications of not following the recommendations?
Ethical behaviour
Ethical issues should be referred to throughout the report. Also, ethical issues should be incorporated into the Decision Criteria. Ethical behaviour is an important concern for most aspects of business. When critiquing the case, students are challenged to be aware and sensitive to ethical issues that impact on all company stakeholders.
Locating evidence to support a position
The case is decision based and portrays an issue from the point of view of an individual working for a specific company in a particular industry. Students will need to resolve problems or issues. Learners need to explain the fundamental nature of the situations encountered within this context to deal with or reduce the effect on business of these problems. Resolutions to the challenges faced by these businesses are not simply contained in the video clips or transcriptions. Responses will need to be created using logical reasoning processes supported by a wide variety of information sources including Curtin Library
Databases, Internet, discussion boards, social media, print media and so forth.
Company stakeholders
Sound business judgment needs to be based on evidence and consider all the relevant available information. Part of this process involves acknowledging and reconciling the views and rights of the relevant company stakeholders. This may invoke social and ethical legitimacy issues. Anticipating and responding to environmental changes is an indication of 6 innovative problem solving. Anticipation of the intended and unintended consequences of decisions is important when judgments are made about difficult decisions.
Credible analysis
Be sure to identify all assumptions before making any judgments. Decisions need to be supported by sound logic and with evidence to support the conclusions reached. Finally, it is important to thoroughly consider the robustness of the overall analysis. Credible Solutions need to be considered in the context of organisational challenges. The consequences of implementing recommended actions need to be carefully considered.