MMA December 2015 Newsletter

MARYLAND

ISSUE 20/ DECEMBER 2015

MOTORCOACH ASSOCIATION

A Failure To Act 4 Reasons you need

A Professional Mentor

Some of the Best

Viral Campaigns of 2015

Electronic Logging Devices to be Required

ELECTRONIC LOGGING DEVICES TO BE REQUIRED ACROSS COMMERCIAL TRUCK AND BUS INDUSTRIES/

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration...

5 TRENDS THAT WILL CHANGE HOW COMPANIES USE SOCIAL MEDIA IN 2016/

There are now more than 2 billion active social media users worldwide, and that sum is...

FMCSA’S FINAL RULE PROHIBITS COERCION, PROTECTS COMMERCIAL TRUCK AND BUS DRIVERS FROM BEING FORCED TO VIOLATE SAFETY REGULATIONS/

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration...

HERE ARE SOME OF THE BEST VIRAL CAMPAIGNS OF 2015/

Each year there are new viral campaigns on social media and on the web and each year...

FMCSA CONTINUING TO ALLOW LANE DEPARTURE, COLLISION MITIGATION CAMERAS TO BE MOUNTED LOWER ON WINDSHIELD/

FIVE WAYS TO ‘GREEN’ YOUR BUSINESS USING TECHNOLOGY/

A FAILURE TO ACT – THE LEADER’S 5 MOST DAMAGING INACTIONS/

Do you have a customer referral program in place at your organization? If you don’t,...

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has renewed an exemption that allows carriers...

For every action there is a reaction. But for the leader’s 5 worst inactions, there is often...

THE BRILLIANT STRATEGY MICHELIN USES TO KEEP ITS BEST EMPLOYEES FROM QUITTING/

Recognizing that workers often quit or become unproductive when they feel stuck or bored...

Every organisation, business or data centre consumes material and energy resources, either...

THE DATA-BACKED STRATEGY BEHIND CLOSING DEALS FASTER [RESEARCH]/

4 REASONS YOU NEED A PROFESSIONAL MENTOR/ When it comes to your career, everyone needs advice. But it’s not always easy to find honest...

FRONT LINES OF CYBER RISK: WHAT’S A COMPANY’S BEST DEFENSE?/

“We’ve been hacked.”

More than one company — in fact, more than one...

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From The President/ Maryland Motorcoach Association (MMA) celebrated the holidays this year big time on board the Spirit Cruises. The group mixed networking, dining, dancing, entertainment, and views while they cruised around Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

Sponsors for the event; ABC Bus, CH Bus Sales/ TEMSA, Don Brown Bus Sales, Prevost and MCI helped support the function and keep the drinks flowing to a very thirsty crowd.

Cheryl Clemens-Everidge was the driving force behind the event and helped to coordinate all of the fabulous door prizes and silent auction items donated by tour and travel partners up and down the east coast allowing MMA to donate over $700.00 from the silent auction items to *Toys For Tot’s* this year truly a worthwhile cause. Toys for Tots - a Top-Rated Charity donates over 97% of these donations by providing toys, books, and other gifts to less fortunate children.

Thank you Cheryl and everyone else for supporting this cause and putting a smile on some children’s faces on Christmas morning.

MMA believes that the holidays are about children and family, sharing, and joy, being thankful and about faith and appreciation. At this time of the year we want to let all of you know how much we appreciate your continued support of MMA. Through your support and the MMA’s board’s efforts we are able to support the motorcoach and tour and travel industry in Maryland through legislative purposes by letting our motorcoach operators know what’s going on in their industry both on the state

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and federal level, and encouraging networking and support of our tour and travel partners through our annual group leader travel showcase and other networking events.

Just and FYI MMA will host delegates and legislators on January 27, 2016 at the Gov. Calvert House in Annapolis, MD with the MD School Bus Association once again. We encourage you to attend this function to show your support of the motorcoach industry in Maryland. More information can be found on the MMA website.

As we reflect on the past year and look forward to 2016 please join me in taking a moment to pause and smell the fragrance of the scent of pine remembering past childhood Christmas with family and friends gathered around the tree and simply enjoying the comfort of home.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to one and all

Al Spence, President MMA A & S Midway Trailways

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MMA Holiday Party

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Electronic Logging Devices

Electronic Logging Devic Commercial Truck and Bu The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) today announced the adoption of a Final Rule that will improve roadway safety by employing technology to strengthen commercial truck and bus drivers’ compliance with hours-of-service regulations that prevent fatigue.

“Since 1938, complex, on-duty/off-duty logs for truck and bus drivers were made with pencil and paper, virtually impossible to verify,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “This automated technology not only brings logging records into the modern age, it also allows roadside safety inspectors to unmask violations of federal law that put lives at risk.”

The Final Rule requiring the use of electronic logging devices (ELD) will result in an annual net benefit of more than $1 billion – largely by reducing the amount of required industry paperwork. It will also increase the efficiency of roadside law enforcement personnel in reviewing driver records. Strict protections are included that will protect commercial drivers from harassment.

On an annual average basis, the ELD Final Rule is estimated to save 26 lives and prevent 562 injuries resulting from crashes involving large commercial motor vehicles.

“This is a win for all motorists on our nation’s roadways,” said FMCSA Acting Administrator Scott Darling. “Employing technology to ensure that commercial drivers comply with federal hours-ofservice rules will prevent crashes and save lives.”

An ELD automatically records driving time. It monitors engine hours, vehicle movement, miles driven, and location information.

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Federal safety regulations limit the number of hours commercial drivers can be on-duty and still drive, as well as the number of hours spent driving. These limitations are designed to prevent truck and bus drivers from becoming fatigued while driving, and require that drivers take a work break and have a sufficient off-duty rest period before returning to onduty status.

The four main elements of the ELD Final Rule include: Requiring commercial truck and bus drivers who currently use paper log books to maintain hours-ofservice records to adopt ELDs within two years. It is anticipated that approximately three million drivers will be impacted.

Strictly prohibiting commercial driver harassment.

The Final Rule provides both procedural and technical provisions designed to protect commercial truck and bus drivers from harassment resulting from information generated by ELDs. [A separate FMCSA rulemaking further safeguards commercial drivers from being coerced to violate federal safety regulations and provides the agency with the authority to take enforcement actions not only against motor carriers, but also against shippers, receivers, and transportation intermediaries.]

Setting technology specifications detailing performance and design requirements for ELDs so that manufacturers are able to produce compliant devices and systems – and purchasers are enabled to make informed decisions.

Establishing new hours-of-service supporting document (shipping documents, fuel purchase receipts, etc.) requirements that will result in additional paperwork reductions. In most cases, a motor carrier

ces to be Required Across us Industries

Image courtesy: www.blogsdir.cms.rrcdn.com

would not be required to retain supporting documents verifying on-duty driving time.

The ELD Final Rule permits the use of smart phones and other wireless devices as ELDs, so long as they satisfy technical specifications, are certified, and are listed on an FMCSA website. Canadian- and Mexican-domiciled drivers will also be required to use ELDs when operating on U.S. roadways.

Motor carriers who have previously installed compliant Automatic On-Board Recording Devices may continue to use the devices for an additional two years beyond the compliance date.

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Social Media In 2016

5 TRENDS THAT WILL CHA COMPANIES USE SOCIAL 10 www.greenazine.com

There are now more than 2 billion active social media users worldwide, and that sum is growing at a brisk clip of 25% each year. Businesses haven’t failed to noticed the runaway expansion of social media. Nine out of 10 U.S. companies are now active on social networks. The same overwhelming percentage of those are reporting seeing increased exposure as a result, and more than half say their social media efforts are boosting sales.

So what’s in store for 2016? Here’s a look at five trends that appear set to change how businesses use social media in the year ahead.

1. SOCIAL NETWORKS STORM THE WORKPLACE For years now, we’ve been promised that a new generation of internal social networks— for use within companies by employees—will put a swift death to email. No more hunting through your inbox for information. No more endless reply-all threads from hell. And yet email has lumbered on.

But maybe not for long. Slack has proven a game-changer.

Its intuitive interface, built around themed chat rooms and searchable archives, has propelled it to more than 1.25 million active business users in

ANGE HOW MEDIA IN 2016 www.greenazine.com

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just two years’ time, from the team at NASA to the team at your local coffee shop. And Slack already has a sizable cohort of competitors going after a piece of the pie.

that affects web traffic and “conversions.” Intrepid brands—from Hellman’s to Absolut to HBO—are testing the waters, but by and large messaging’s huge potential remains untapped.

Meanwhile, Facebook at Work is currently in trial mode with select companies, and it may soon be opened up to general use in the coming year as a freemium tool. Considering that much of the world is already on Facebook, expect adoption to soar once Facebook at Work finally becomes available.

Still, 2016 may well be the year that analytics and insights become more readily available, allowing companies to develop full-fledged strategies around social messaging. All the major social platforms now have messaging components, and it’s only a matter of time before they figure out how to make that data available to businesses for marketing purposes.

2. COMPANIES TURN TO EMPLOYEES FOR AMPLIFICATION Nearly 80% of businesses now have a dedicated social media team. But many still struggle to reach an audience. 2016 will see companies turn increasingly to an underused resource in the effort to get the word out: their own employees. Employee social advocacy programs, which encourage staff to share updates about the business on their own social media accounts, have grown by 191% since 2013 and are due to take off in the year ahead.

When done right, the payoff can be impressive; companies not only expand their social media reach dramatically, they also get measurably better results. Content shared by employees, by one recent measure, gets eight times more engagement than content shared by brand channels. A new generation of tools to facilitate employee sharing (including one we developed here at Hootsuite) should help this approach go mainstream in 2016.

3. COMPANIES WADE INTO SOCIAL MESSAGING Here’s an eye-opener: There are nearly 4 billion global active users of messaging apps, from WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger to WeChat and Kik. In fact, the top five apps in the world in terms of frequency of use are all messaging apps. Users are popping them open more often than even Facebook or Instagram.

What does this mean for companies? So far, not much. Messaging remains largely in the murky realm that’s come to be known as “dark social.” Right now, it’s kind of a mystery as to what type of content is being shared among messaging app users and how

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In the meantime, messaging is already emerging as a key channel for one-on-one social customer service. Twitter lifted its 140-character limit and follow requirements on direct messages earlier this year with customer support in mind, and Facebook Messenger has been busy piloting customer service features of its own.

4. SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING HITS ITS STRIDE Haven’t noticed the exponential increase in ads on your social media feeds? That probably means they’re working. In contrast to old-fashioned banner ads, the new generation of “native” social media ads like sponsored posts on Facebook and Instagram and promoted tweets on Twitter look and act a lot like normal updates from friends and followers. They’re also targeted with increasing precision. Advertisers are now able to drill down not just by age and gender, but by interests, location, company affiliation, role, and more. So the ads you get are probably the ones you actually want to see.

For all those reasons, companies ramped up social media advertising in 2015, with spending increasing 33.5% to nearly $24 billion—a figure that’s all the more impressive, because just a few years ago that number was $0.

Expect to see those trends continue. By 2017, social media ads may account for a full 16% of all digital ad spend globally. Fueling the growth is a host of new tools that let small businesses design and pay for social media ads in a few clicks, simplifying a process that was once the exclusive domain of high-priced media buyers.

5. SOCIAL VIDEO EATS THE WORLD

There are now more than 2 billion active social media users worldwide, and that sum is growing at a brisk clip of 25% each year. Businesses haven’t failed to noticed the runaway expansion of social media. Nine out of 10 U.S. companies are now active on social networks. The same overwhelming percentage of those are reporting seeing increased exposure as a result, and more than half say their social media efforts are boosting sales.

In case you missed it, social video is exploding. Last year, Facebook more than doubled its daily video views to 8 billion, reportedly overtaking YouTube.

Twitter launched native video of its own in 2015, while Snapchat now reports 6 billion daily video views in its own right. In total, adult users now consume a total of 66 minutes of online video each and every day.

Expect that total to climb to lofty new heights in 2016. Facebook is preparing to roll out features like Suggested Videos and maybe even a dedicated video feed, and Snapchat Stories are growing ever more popular and feature-rich. Little wonder that 70% of companies now say video is the most effective tool in their online marketing belts, and two out of three businesses expect it to dominate their strategy going forward.

Despite these stats, many companies are still reluctant to get into the social video game for one reason: The cost of professionally shot video can be prohibitively expensive. But alternatives are multiplying. Shorter formats, from eight-second Vines to 15-second Instagram videos, not to mention streaming video like Periscope and Meerkat, offer a hassle-free entrance into the arena. Meanwhile, crowdsourcing campaigns and tools are gaining popularity as a way for companies to create and share video content.

The biggest trend of all for 2016, however, hardly requires a crystal ball to see. Around the world, social media is quickly becoming standard operating procedure at companies. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other networks have fundamentally changed how companies reach and interact with customers, offer products and services, communicate with employees, and—in a nutshell— do business. And that wave hasn’t even begun to crest.

This article is written by RYAN HOLMES and can be seen online by click on below button.

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FMCSA’s Final Rule Prohibits Coercion

FMCSA’s Final Rule Prohibits Coer and Bus Drivers From Being Forc 14 www.greenazine.com

rcion, Protects Commercial Truck ced to Violate Safety Regulations www.greenazine.com

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The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) today announced the publication in the Federal Register of a Final Rule to help further safeguard commercial truck and bus drivers from being compelled to violate federal safety regulations. The Rule provides FMCSA with the authority to take enforcement action not only against motor carriers, but also against shippers, receivers, and transportation intermediaries.

“Our nation relies on millions of commercial vehicle drivers to move people and freight, and we must do everything we can to ensure that they are able to operate safely,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “This Rule enables us to take enforcement action against anyone in the transportation chain who knowingly and recklessly jeopardizes the safety of the driver and of the motoring public.”

The Final Rule addresses three key areas concerning driver coercion: procedures for commercial truck and bus drivers to report incidents of coercion to the

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FMCSA, steps the agency could take when responding to such allegations, and penalties that may be imposed on entities found to have coerced drivers.

“Any time a motor carrier, shipper, receiver, freightforwarder, or broker demands that a schedule be met, one that the driver says would be impossible without violating hours-of-service restrictions or other safety regulations, that is coercion,” said FMCSA Acting Administrator Scott Darling. “No commercial driver should ever feel compelled to bypass important federal safety regulations and potentially endanger the lives of all travelers on the road.”

In formulating this Rule, the agency heard from commercial drivers who reported being pressured to violate federal safety regulations with implicit or explicit threats of job termination, denial of subsequent trips or loads, reduced pay, forfeiture of favorable work hours or transportation jobs, or other direct retaliations.

Some of the FMCSA regulations drivers reported being coerced into violating included: hours-of-service limitations designed to prevent fatigued driving, commercial driver’s license (CDL) requirements, drug and alcohol testing, the transportation of hazardous materials, and commercial regulations applicable to, among others, interstate household goods movers and passenger carriers.

Commercial truck and bus drivers have had whistleblower protection through the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) since 1982, when the Surface Transportation Assistance Act (STAA) was adopted. The STAA and OSHA regulations protect drivers and other individuals working for commercial motor carriers from retaliation for reporting or engaging in activities related to certain commercial motor vehicle safety, health, or security conditions. STAA provides whistleblower protection for drivers who report coercion complaints under this Final Rule and are then retaliated against by their employer.

In June 2014, FMCSA and OSHA signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen the coordination and cooperation between the agencies regarding the anti-retaliation provision of the STAA. The Memorandum allows for the exchange of safety, coercion, and retaliation allegations, when received by one agency, that fall under the authority of the other.

For more information on what constitutes coercion and how to submit a complaint to FMCSA, see: www. fmcsa.dot.gov/safety/coercion. Please note: the Final Rule takes effect 60 days following its publication in the Federal Register.

This rulemaking was authorized by Section 32911 of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) and the Motor Carrier Safety Act of 1984 (MCSA), as amended.

For a copy of today’s Federal Register announcement, see: www.federalregister.gov/ articles/2015/11/30/2015-30237/prohibitingcoercion-of-commercial-motor-vehicle-drivers.

The public, commercial drivers, motor carriers, and other industry members may file a safety, service, or discrimination complaint against a household goods moving company, bus, or truck company, including hazardous materials hauler or a cargo tank facility, by calling toll free 1-888-DOT-SAFT (1-888-368-7238) from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, Eastern Time. Complaints may also be submitted through FMCSA’s National Consumer Complaint website at: http://nccdb.fmcsa.dot.gov.

FMCSA was established as a separate administration within the U.S. Department of Transportation on January 1, 2000, pursuant to the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999. Its primary mission is to reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities involving large trucks and buses. For more information on FMCSA’s safety programs and activities, visit: http://www. fmcsa.dot.gov.

OSHA enforces the whistleblower provisions of the Occupational Safety and Health Act and 21 other statutes protecting employees who report violations of various workplace, commercial motor vehicle, airline, nuclear, pipeline, environmental, railroad, public transportation, maritime, consumer product, motor vehicle safety, health care reform, corporate securities, food safety, and consumer financial reform regulations. Additional information is available at: http://www.whistleblowers.gov.

Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHA’s role is to ensure these conditions for America’s working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education, and assistance.

For more information, visit: http://www.osha.gov.

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FMCSA Continuing To Allow Lane Departure

FMCSA continuing to allow lane departure, collision mitigation cameras to be mounted lower on windshield 20 www.greenazine.com

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has renewed an exemption that allows carriers to mount lane departure warning systems and collision mitigation cameras lower on the windshield of a truck.

FMCSA granted the exemption for a two-year period, ending Nov. 17, 2017. During the exemption period, carriers using lane departure warning systems and collision mitigation systems with sensors measuring 2 inches by 3.5 inches or smaller can mount the sensors no more than two inches below the upper edge of the area swept by the windshield wipers and outside the driver’s sight lines.

The agency did reserve the right to rescind the exemption if carriers or drivers fail to comply with the terms of the exemption, if the exemption results in a lower level of safety than before or if continuation of the exemption wouldn’t be consistent with the “goals and objectives of regulations,” FMCSA says.

FMCSA first granted the exemption in 2011 to Conway, Takata and Iteris. Iteris soon after sold its vehicle sensors business to Bendix, and in 2013, Bendix requested renewal of the exemption but expanded the scope to include all systems, not just Takata and Bendix systems.

FMCSA is also requesting comments from anyone with information that demonstrates that trucks using these systems aren’t as safe as trucks that do not. The agency said it will evaluate that information and revoke the exemption if it feels safety is being compromised.

To comment on the exemption, visit www.regulations. gov and search Docket No. FMCSA-2010-0166.

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A Failure To Act

A FailureTo Act–TheLeader’s

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s5Most DamagingInactions For every action there is a reaction.

But for the leader’s 5 worst inactions, there is often a chain reaction of undesirable consequences.

1. Failure To Make A Decision – Indecision can

paralyze an organization. It can create doubt, uncertainty, lack of focus, and even resentment.

Multiple options can linger, sapping an organization’s energy and killing a sense of completion.

Timelines stretch while costs skyrocket. As we vacillate, competition can eat our lunch, or worse, as HR expert Ron Thomas points out in his article on indecision. The leader must always be wary that choosing not to decide is a choice, with consequences.

2. Failure To Stop Spin – A

close cousin to indecision, this form of inaction happens when the leader is out of touch and continually misses signals of stalled progress. Such signals include repeated meetings on the same topic, milestone dates missed, long periods of silence where nothing is heard from the team, or one-off overtures from individual team members pleading their case on something the team should be working on together.

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They wonder: “Am I working on the right things? Does my leader notice my efforts and accomplishments, or even care? Are my efforts not up to his/her standards?”

It can manifest itself as a plain old fashion lack of feeling appreciated. And all of this leads to a lack of feeling motivated. establishing clear roles/behavioral expectations for each team member, allowing too many cooks in the kitchen; not ensuring success is clearly defined; not ensuring alignment up the chain to strategies and planned actions; not appreciating the difficulty of a project; or by delegating and forgetting.

3. Failure To Resolve Conflict In A Timely Fashion – Debate is a healthy and necessary

component of everyday business. Sometimes debate can grow uncomfortable, which is okay as long as respect is maintained and truth and transparency come out. It is when the leader allows the debate to devolve to conflict, and the conflict lingers, that trouble arises. Reality can

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be distorted as both sides spiral into an us versus them mentality, inefficiency and stress surge, and bonds may be irreparably weakened.

The leader must cut off disrespectful behavior, deflate, not elevate, overly emotional behavior, and keep focus on building a team-based approach. Asking the troops to work it out is a cop out; sometimes rolling up the sleeves, getting to the root of the conflict, and mediating a resolution is required. Conflict often arises from the passion opposing sides feel for the matter at hand; leaders must be on high alert to channel unproductive passion into high energy solutions.

For more ideas help on just how to do so, visit Positive Sharing.

4. Failure To Reward & Recognize – A missed opportunity to recognize is a missed opportunity to energize. There are plenty of seemingly good excuses for why the rewards and recognition never takes place. However, the bottom line is that failure to reward and recognize creates doubts in employees’ minds.

They wonder: “Am I working on the right things? Does my leader notice my efforts and accomplishments, or even care? Are my efforts not up to his/her standards?” It can manifest itself as a plain old fashion lack of feeling appreciated.

And all of this leads to a lack of feeling motivated.

5. Failure To Inform – It’s difficult enough to gain competitive intelligence; why would we withhold our own? And it happens far too often – how many times have you been on a team, found out something too late, and thought, “It would have been nice to know that a month?” As leaders, when we withhold information or don’t make the time investment to openly share critical information, we handicap our organizations.

Think of this article as a call to action to avoid damaging inaction.

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Strategy To Keep Best Employees

The brilliant strategy Miche its best employees from qu 26 www.greenazine.com

elin uses to keep uitting

Michelin uses a threepart “triangle� plan during job-placement discussions. The process starts with a discussion about what skills employees want to grow and what they are currently doing.

Then the manager and employee use a job-posting system to find relevant jobs and career paths the employee might want to explore. Finally, an employee can talk to other employees who have pursued paths in certain disciplines they are interested in exploring.

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Recognizing that workers often quit or become unproductive when they feel stuck or bored in their roles, Michelin encourages employees to move around frequently within the company. The result is an incredibly high 97% retention rate.

Founded in 1889, the French conglomerate is the world’s third-largest tire manufacturer and employs 111,000 people around the globe. In addition to the Michelin brand, it also owns BFGoodrich, Kleber, Tigar, Riken, Kormoran, and Uniroyal.

Business Insider recently sat down with David Stafford, chief human resources officer and executive vice president of personnel for Michelin North America, to discuss the company’s unique approach to career development.

Since allowing employees to jump around as they see fit would be a logistical nightmare, Michelin employs nearly 400 “career managers” to help workers and managers have productive discussions about future goals and needs.

The first question career managers ask employees is: “What is it that you are really passionate about?”

“You can’t always satisfy that passion,” Stafford says, “but it’s good to know what they want.”

Career managers also look pragmatically at an employee’s past performance and their skill sets to help ensure they will be set up for success in the position.

“Our managers look at three key areas - passion, proven history, and an employee’s willingness and ability to adapt to change and take on new things,” Stafford says.

Michelin uses a three-part “triangle” plan during job-placement discussions. The process starts with a discussion about what skills employees want to grow and what they are currently doing. Then the manager and employee use a job-posting system to find relevant jobs and career paths the employee might want to explore. Finally, an employee can talk to other employees who have pursued paths in certain disciplines they are interested in exploring.

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Stafford divides Michelin employees into two groups.

The first group bounces around from one job to another. They might start in accounting, move to research and development, and end up in operations.

Stafford says these workers want to “go wide” in their careers and to “broaden themselves” as people.

The second group is focused on “going deep.” They tend to join the company and work their way up the corporate ladder in of one specialty.

Because an employee might join Michelin and then transition out of their current role in the future, the company must look beyond skill sets during the hiring process.

Stafford says they still hire for certain skills, but they also focus on the candidate’s goals. “We have to ask if they are looking for a job or a career.”

Michelin’s HR team looks for people who are “embracing what we want to be as an organization,” Stafford says. “We want to offer something good to the community; we believe the market wants it.”

Michelin employees can choose to “go wide” or “go deep.”

Michelin’s career-development program has been a huge success in creating employee loyalty. From 2009 to 2015, only 3% of employees quit, according to the company.

“People see very quickly that they have a chance to grow by working in different positions within different areas of the company,” Stafford says. “As we develop their career paths over time, they buy into what the company is focused on. You end up building this incredible stickiness between employee and company.”

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The Best Viral Campaigns

Here are Some of the Best

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t Viral Campaigns of 2015 Each year there are new viral campaigns on social media and on the web and each year there are new things to learn. By analyzing some of the top marketing plans (or accidents) you can start to understand what works with audiences and how audiences change year after year. Going viral can be tough but some of the elements that helped these viral campaigns can still potentially help give yours that extra boost you’ve been looking as we gear up for a New Year.

Keep in mind as well that viral campaigns don’t always have to be on Facebook, where they seem to pop up most often. Companies are getting creative with different mediums, so it’s important to explore those as well. Therefore, below shows some of the best viral campaigns we saw in 2015 on several different social media platforms that aren’t Facebook.

Best Viral Campaigns 2015 Dove: Choose Campaign

Beautiful

YouTube

As you can see, this campaign was centered on giving women the choice to walk through a door that says “average” or a door that says “beautiful.” It’s an interesting campaign because it concludes with all women wishing they had said beautiful like some of their peers. This hammers in Dove’s idea of real beauty and what that means.

What makes this campaign so great is the fact that is appeals to the emotions of their target audience.

It is relatable and it makes you think, “what door would I have chosen?” What’s cool is that then after asking these questions you start to think about the importance of real beauty (and what do you know, that’s Dove’s tagline). It got away from advertising the product and advertised something that relates to everyone. Whether you think you’re beautiful or not, you fit into one category which makes this ad relevant.

The Last Selfie: World Wildlife Fund (WWF) on Snapchat The idea behind this campaign is to bring awareness to the animal populations at risk of going extinct around the world. WWF knew that they have a global audience and they needed to reach that audience, and snapchat was the perfect place to do that. According to Ittisa, “the whole idea behind WWF using Snapchat was to emphasize the fact that endangered species are disappearing around the world just as selfies disappear from Snapchat in 10 seconds.”

Even if you didn’t think of that when you saw the campaign, the press let us know this reasoning which helped bring another layer to the campaign entirely.

In fact, it was one of the 2015 Webby Award winners.

This is one campaign that really stuck out to me personally because of the imagery. It catches your attention because of the vibrant images, the relatable (and sad) taglines, and the way that they manage to mesh something as meanlingless as selfies next to animals that need our help. They also use a hashtag to help get the campaign going, which helped bring the campaign from Snapchat to other social networks.

Always: #LikeAGirl on Twitter This is probably the most popular of the best viral campaigns on our list. The video shows the limiting way that so many people think of girls and women without even realizing it. For example, at one point a boy is asked to “run like a girl,” and he acts weak. The actresses and actors think they’re trying to audition for something, and get a rude awakening.

When young girls were asked the same question, the young girls ran with power and excitement. So where do things change? According to women, they tend to lose confidence around puberty, which coincides perfectly with the feminine product and really makes us all think: Why?

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Although it originally aired at the Superbowl, the campaign continued to trend on various social accounts, large part through the #LikeAGirl hashtag.

The content of the campaign is perfect here because it makes you think about an issue in a completely different way by showing different age groups of women so we can see where things start to go wrong.

The content makes us agree with the message while scratching our heads wondering why we never thought about it that way before. To no one’s surprise, #LikeAGirl started trending on Twitter, was retweeted by several celebrities, and before you knew it – the video was viewed more than 85 million times, 30 million of those the first week it was released.

As a side note, Always continued to keep the campaign going by creating more, similar videos, which I highly recommend checking out on their page here.

Mercedes-Benz USA: Build a GLA on Instagram So this one was slightly before 2015, but 2015 is when it really started to take off. This campaign allowed people to customize a car right on Instagram from everything down to color, rims, windows, and more.

Interaction was the main focus of this campaign. They gave the audience an outlet to be creative without having to actually leave the outlet they were already using (Instagram). This got them over 100,000 likes and nearly 20,000 new followers. It’s likely that their younger audience told others about the car they created, which got others to want to get involved. It obviously worked brilliantly.

Ex Machina on Tinder This was a campaign that I heard about from someone who attended the SXSW festival back in March, and it quickly became viral and was shared on multiple social platforms. At the festival, there was a woman named Avo on the Tinder dating app that was speaking very similarly to the woman in the movie Ex Machina. You could actually interact with her, even though she was supposed to be a robot!

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Each year there are new viral campaigns on social media and on the web and each year there are new things to learn. By analyzing some of the top marketing plans (or accidents) you can start to understand what works with audiences and how audiences change year after year.

What is particularly interesting about this campaign is the fact that it is for a movie. Movies already have their way of getting a lot of publicity so you may not feel this can relate to your business, but what they did was create a viral campaign that simply used the movie, not to advertise it per se. As a small business, you can do something similar if you’re able to use your products to get people to relate and spark interest.

Tinder may be a tough one, but do something cool at an event and create a hashtag for the same outcome.

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In regards to the Motorcoach Marketing program, we love it. So far, we have made the 1000 postcards, and we did some full page handouts. We just got a stand up banner.

When I get some time, I’ll be making new rack cards for both offices. We made 500 church theme postcards and 500 in the safety theme.

We sent out the church cards through a local mailing company to every church within 50 miles. So far, we have had a great response and 4-5 people booked trips from it. I plan on using the safety ones soon by sending them to our new customers. All of our staff and drivers love the modern design and the finished products. Only one of my staff has watched the videos so far, but we will be working on that next month. So far I’m very happy with the service. It works well and looks great!

Chris Knittel

Owner/General Manager New Mexico Texas Coaches, LLC

We Help Operators Sell More Charters To More People.

Easier. Faster. Far More Effective.

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33

Five Ways To Green Your Business

Five ways to ‘green’your business using technology There is no doubt the world is warming and we will all be in serious trouble if it continues.

So what can a responsible enterprise do? Every small action will help contribute to change.

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Every organisation, business or data centre consumes material and energy resources, either directly or indirectly through the things or services they buy.

It’s now common knowledge that the world is getting warmer.

There are still arguments about whether burning fossil fuels is the cause or whether we are just riding a long-term warming cycle. In 1963, the Thames froze over in London.

In 1814 the last of the London Frost Fairs was held, with shops, stalls and gambling on the frozen river.

Today, the Champagne makers of France are moving to Sussex because their native land is too hot.

There is no doubt the world is warming and we will all be in serious trouble if it continues. So what can

a responsible enterprise do? Every small action will help contribute to change. With this in mind, below are five tips to help businesses become increasingly green:

Almost every business has the option to buy ‘brown’ electricity generated from coal, ‘blue’ electricity generated from renewables and nuclear, or ‘green’ electricity generated exclusively from renewables.

Buy blue or green energy

The prices rarely differ too much, although green energy can be cheaper than brown. So buying blue or green electricity will make a difference not only to the environmental impact of your business, but possibly also to your profit margins too.

All businesses, regardless of their size or sector, buy energy as without it, they wouldn’t be able to run. Gas is much more efficient than electricity, because a lot of the electricity generated is used to heat up wires on pylons, cables under the streets and transformers.

Gas is also a third of the price per Kilowatt-hour, so using gas instead of electricity when possible is a no brainer.

Switch the lights off It may sound obvious, but switching the lights off saves energy. A walk around London, or any other major city, on a winter’s evening shows how many businesses do not do it. Office blocks are ablaze with light long after everyone has gone home. www.greenazine.com

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Admittedly, the life of both fluorescent tubes and incandescent bulbs is reduced by switching them on and off, but it is hardly energy conscious or socially responsible to leave them on for twelve hours without anybody being in the building.

Therefore switch lights off when not in use, or better still, fit movement detectors so the lights come on when someone enters a room and switch off if there is no movement. Even better, fit LED bulbs. They are bright, use almost no energy and last for years and years.

Bottles and glass can be sent for recycling. Food can be delivered to special composters to be used to create energy.

If an organisation like Nestle, can define, operate and achieve a ‘zero to landfill’ policy, so can most other UK businesses given a bit of thought and effort.

Partner with green vendors

Move the IT to a data centre or cloud

With green issues and sustainability now at the forefront of public attention, many organisations now have a formal environmental and sustainability policy.

Worryingly, many still do not.

Using an in-house data centre is the most energy inefficient way to run business IT systems. An inhouse data centre is rarely designed with energy efficiency in mind, whereas a professional data centre designed for IT, datacomms and voice colocation has energy efficiency at the forefront of its operations.

This is due to two factors.

As a buyer, it is worth rewarding those that take their environmental responsibility seriously. For example, does a data centre operate energy efficient cooling?

Does a transport company operate its vehicles in an energy conscious way? Is the environmental policy open, transparent and published on the organisation’s website for all to see?

Firstly, there are clear environmental benefits to running an energy efficient data centre but also because the cost of energy is high for a data centre and it bears the costs. A responsible data centre will therefore already be using green electricity while continuously considering how processes could be made increasingly efficient.

The environment is everyone’s responsibility.

Whether the rise of temperatures is caused by burning fossil fuels or just part of a long term climate cycle is a matter up for debate, but no-one can deny it is happening, otherwise champagne makers would not be buying up the Sussex Downs and we would still have annual London Frost Fairs.

A cloud will also be running in a data centre and the combination of data centre virtualised servers and data centre energy efficiency is by far the greenest way there is to run an IT system currently.

There will be winners and losers but mankind overall will be a loser from global warming if we continue to ignore the obvious changes. We all have an opportunity to do our little bit and whether we are a Welsh steelworks, a London data centre or a Scottish insurer, we should all be responsible enough to do it.

Recycling and waste disposal Every business’ waste disposal processes differ. A steelworks or a data centre do not have the same disposal issues as an insurance office for example due to the nature of the industry. However, every business can do its bit and make a difference to the environment.

Paper can be separated out and recycled. Batteries can be separated out and sent for specialist disposal.

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The Data Backed Strategy

The Data-Backed Strateg Faster [Research]

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gy Behind Closing Deals Do you have a customer referral program in place at your organization? If you don’t, that’s normal: Only about one-third of companies do.

But what if I told you that 56% of sales reps deem referrals to be “very important” to their success?

Would you think about putting a formal referral program in place?

Generating new customers is the most important part of any business’ sales strategy. While some companies and their sales reps have no problem getting new customers through the funnel, others struggle to create the relationships necessary to attract new customers and develop new business.

What’s the difference between these two types of companies?

According to new research from Influitive and Heinz Marketing, B2B sales reps and companies that invest in customer referral programs are thriving.

The study -- which surveyed more than 600 B2B professionals -- found that referral programs result in more leads, a lower cost of marketing, better sales forecasts, and more.

Here are the three most interesting findings for sales reps.

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Influitive note that 67% of companies with a referral program classify their sales pipeline as “effective.”

With the right tools and infrastructure in place, companies are 3x more likely to accelerate the conversion of referrals, according to the data.

Referrals close faster.

All prospects are not created equal. If given the choice, salespeople would prefer to work prospects slated to close quickly.

So what type of prospects close the fastest? According to the research, 69% of B2B sales reps report that a referral closes faster than a non-referred new prospect. The study also points out that 70% of reps whose companies have referral programs in place are on pace to meet or exceed their 2015 revenue goals.

Referrals have a higher lifetime value.

Finding a way to maximize customer lifetime value is critical to the success of a business.

If you’re struggling with LTV, consider doubling down on referrals. Referred customers have a 59% higher lifetime value than non-referred customers, according to the research. In addition, Heinz Marketing and

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Referral programs provide more leads.

Reps will always agree on one thing: They need more leads. More leads means more opportunities, which generates more revenue.

According to this study, referrals hold the key to generating more leads. Thirty-five percent of the sales reps surveyed said their leads increased due to referral programs. Furthermore, nearly 65% of respondents with a referral program called it critical to their and their company’s success.

How to Get More Referrals The data makes it clear that referrals are extremely valuable to sales reps and their companies. But one big question remains: How can salespeople get more referrals?

In the research report, Heinz Marketing and Influitive provided a few steps to get the ball rolling: 1. Start an online community. Engage your customers online, and create a community where they can swap best practices and advocate for your company.

2. Don’t be afraid to ask for referrals. The research suggests that timing your request for referrals correctly is more important than how often you request them. For example, if you notice that customers are particularly delighted at a certain point in the process, that’s the ideal time to ask for a referral.

3. Set up a formal referral program. With the right tools and infrastructure in place, companies are 3x more likely to accelerate the conversion of referrals, according to the data.

Referrals boast a higher customer lifetime value and close faster than non-referred prospects. If your company doesn’t have a formal referral program in place, use this data to build a business case for one.

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41

A Professional Mentor

4 Reasons You Need A Profess 42 www.greenazine.com

When it comes to your career, everyone needs advice. But it’s not always easy to find honest people who will challenge you, help you and are willing to share their secret wisdom, skills, and expertise with you.

In fact, PwC’s 2015 Global CEO Survey found 73 percent of CEOs said job candidates not possessing desired skills is a major concern. That alone creates a need for workplace mentoring and coaching from others.

In addition, the job search process is more competitive than ever before. Find a mentor who can introduce you to the right people and refer your skillset -- you never know who is in their professional network.

Here are four reasons why you need to find a mentor who will invest in your future:

1. They keep things real.

A mentor is responsible for being honest and telling you like it is. They put things in perspective and let you know if have areas in need of improvement.

An honest mentor will tell you when you’re being stubborn, when they think you should quit your job, or when they notice you’ve given up on a dream you had a long time ago.

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business behavior by giving you an opportunity for self-examination and growth.

No one becomes better at anything by taking the easy route.

You’ll need to hit some roadblocks or a fork in the road before you find yourself capable of true inner growth.

2. They can relate to the struggle and guide you out of it.

Your mentor’s job isn’t to tear your confidence down, but they should help you learn appropriate

Before you leave college or a job, establish a connection with an industry professional. During your

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Finding the job you want is no easy feat -- especially right out of college. Entering the ‘real world’ can be a bit of a culture shock. But there will always be someone who has gone through a similar career struggle.

You need to find a mentor who has worked in the same industry -- at least at some point in their career -- so they understand what you’re going through.

Find a mentor who has a positive outlook on life. They should be able to help you through tough times and show you how to find the opportunity in the difficulties you’re facing.

3. They open the right doors for you.

Simply put, mentors introduce you to the right people.

Look for someone who is well respected and willing to be themselves. A mentor is someone who has the time to be available -- someone who is business-savvy, people-smart and has a great reputation.

job search, contact them for advice or suggestions and they might be able to connect you to a position you never thought was possible.

Maybe they keep in touch with a past colleague who runs a top PR firm in New York City or they have a dear friend who recruits for a top tech company in Chicago.

Don’t be afraid to utilize their network.

4. They never give up on you -or let you give up on yourself.

Mentors help you set goals. Most often, they invest in your success just as much as you do.

While a mentor can navigate a protégé in the right direction to reach their potential, protégés must still rely upon themselves to succeed. To achieve this, develop an action plan to achieve agreedupon goals and communicate on a regular basis.

By all means, you do not need to contact your mentor for every lifealtering decision, but you need to be on the same page.

No one becomes better at anything by taking the easy route. You’ll need to hit some roadblocks or a fork in the road before you find yourself capable of true inner growth.

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Luxury

©2015 MCI | Setra – a brand of Daimler AG

is Standard Equipment.

When you choose a Setra TopClass S 417, average is not an option.

That’s because luxury is the standard. It starts with world-class German engineering and benchmark safety features. Encompasses an unparalleled choice of custom-tailored interiors. And evokes a sense of comfort, well-being and confidence in all who see it, experience it, and own it. And support? That’s standard-setting, too.

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45

Cyber Risk

Front lines of cyber risk: W defense?

“We’ve been hacked.”

More than one company — in fact, more than one government — awoke to the reality of this unsettling statement in 2015. Reports about hacks into accounts at eBay, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and the Central Intelligence Agency may have been among the most publicized incidents, but weren’t the only serious breaches recorded. If time has proven anything, it’s that cyber-related exposures are not diminishing, nor are they being stopped by security measures.

All indications are that data breaches and other cyberrelated exposures are on the rise, and the situation may become worse before it gets better. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, there have been more than 620 data breaches in the United States in 2015, resulting in 176 million records being exposed (as recorded through October).

Some of the largest data breaches on record have occurred within the past year, including: •

Healthcare provider Anthem, with personal information reportedly compromised for as many as 97 million people.

•

Social website AshleyMadison.com, with personal details for 36 million user accounts stolen and made public.

•

The federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM), with more than 5.6 million fingerprint records reportedly stolen.

Two types of corporate victims According to Richard Clarke, the former national coordinator for security, infrastructure protection and counterterrorism for the United States, there are two types of companies — those that have been breached

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What’s a company’s best

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and are aware of it, and those that have been breached and just don’t know.

Once a breach has been discovered, the tangible and intangible costs associated can be significant and affect a business’ long-term ability to survive. According to the 2015 NetDiligence Cyber Claims Study, the average cyber-related insurance claim amounted to $673,767 ($4.8 million for a large company and $1.3 million per claim in the healthcare sector). The study also reported the average cost per breached record amounted to about $964.

Cyber exposures In the current marketplace, many businesses can amass a great deal of information about customers and employees and then store the information indefinitely.

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The primary cyber-related exposure a company often faces is a data breach that results in unauthorized access or release of an individual’s personally identifiable information (PII) or protected health information (PHI). PII includes such information as name, address, birth date, Social Security number, driver’s license number, and credit card or financial account information. PHI includes an individual’s healthcare policy number, biometric information, medical condition, test results, prescriptions, and so forth.

As technology continues to advance, the cyber exposures that companies face are expected to increase exponentially. To that end, a company’s management team needs to consider cyber-related exposures from different perspectives:

• Cyber as a peril: Businesses are becoming

more automated and depend increasingly on computers, software and the Internet to manage their industrial control systems. Managers of these critical infrastructure operations — including energy, utilities, communications, transportation and manufacturing — need to consider and evaluate the potential impact that catastrophic events such as cyber terrorism and cyber war can have. What would the implications be for the business if control systems were to fail or be destroyed? What would the potential impact be on the company’s main business operations and those of its contributors in the supply chain?

• Corporate financial perspective: When

evaluating cyber exposures, a company must assess its financial health and ability to survive a threat. In conducting audits and assessments, rating agencies may ask the company how it would react to a cyber threat. If the company is publicly traded, its stock price might be affected.

A company could face lawsuits from shareholders and customers for failing to take adequate cybersecurity measures. Additionally, a company experiencing a cyber incident might experience reputational harm and loss of business, even if only for a short period of time. Lastly, a company has to decide whether to secure cyber insurance.

• Information

Technology

perspective:

Excellent cybersecurity measures and dedicated IT resources are critical to helping protect a company’s assets. Many businesses continually wrestle with whether to invest more in IT operations to prevent cyber breaches and better protect their data or to purchase cyber insurance in the event of a breach. Many IT experts now believe that 100 percent prevention is impossible and that working to mitigate the losses during a cyber incident may be a prudent course of action.

• Insurance perspective: Depending on the

extent of its business operations, a company may have to comply with multiple federal and state privacy laws if a data breach is discovered.

Currently, 47 states and the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands have enacted laws requiring private or government

entities to notify potentially affected individuals of a data breach. Has the company secured the services of a data breach coach or remediation firm to help address those requirements? Is there adequate insurance coverage to help pay for breach-related expenses?

Preparing for the worst It’s clear that many companies stand to benefit when they prepare a cyber strategy before a claim occurs.

Here are some of the steps in developing such a strategy:

• Identify assets. What constitutes a critical

asset will often vary from company to company.

For example, retail operations, health care facilities and higher education institutions might consider their customer data to be a critical asset.

Manufacturing, energy and telecommunications companies might consider their critical asset to be industrial control systems. Financial institutions, on the other hand, might take a different view and identify the trading platform to be a critical asset. Regardless, identifying what assets need to be protected is a crucial first step.

• Outline a plan of action. Companies need to

establish a plan of action and identify measures to help protect their assets. Vetting upstream and downstream supply chain vendors to inquire whether they employ cybersecurity best practices should be included in any strategy.

• Develop partnerships. Leveraging the services

of a skilled service provider — professionals who have handled prior data breaches — may make dealing with a cyber incident an easier process.

This might include a breach coach, typically an external legal counselor skilled in handling data breaches, or a data breach resolution service that offers pre-breach assessment and education and post-breach remediation services.

• Train employees: Employees often pose the

greatest internal threat to a company. While malicious employees play a part, studies have shown that more often than not, it’s an honest employee who causes cyber incidents, either through human error or by mistakenly doing

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what the employee believes is right. Developing and distributing a cyber emergency response plan can be the first step, but the company should also train all employees and turn the response plan into a protocol — that is, make it almost second nature as opposed to an afterthought. It’s important for everyone — from C-suite down to entry level — to be onboard and know how the plan unfolds.

“We’ve been hacked.”

More than one company — in fact, more than one government — awoke to the reality of this unsettling statement in 2015.

Consider Cyber insurance To survive, a company needs to do all it can to prepare for a cyber incident. Being prepared oftentimes goes beyond developing a cyber strategy — it should also include consideration of a Cyber insurance policy as a risk management transfer mechanism.

While most business leaders don’t think twice about purchasing a Commercial Property or General Liability insurance policy, when it comes to cyber, far fewer companies have secured this specialized coverage. A robust Cyber insurance policy generally provides first- and third-party type coverages designed to address data breach exposures, including coverages for the following: •

Security breach expenses incurred to establish whether a breach has occurred, investigate the cause and scope of the intrusion, and notify victims

•

Security breach liability arising from the unauthorized disclosure of a third party’s PII or PHI from within the computer system or if the firm’s computer system spreads a virus to a third party

•

Liability arising from programming errors or omissions that ultimately disclose clients’ confidential information held within the computer system

•

Website publishing liability and media liability for errors, misstatements, or misleading statements posted on a website that infringe on another party’s copyright, trademark, trade dress, or service mark; defame a person or organization; or violate a person’s right of privacy

•

Actual loss of business income and extra expenses that a firm incurs as a result of ceasing its web activities due to a virus or extortion threat

•

Extortion threats and threats to introduce a virus, malicious code, or a denial-of-service attack into the insured’s computer system; divulge the firm’s proprietary information contained in the system; inflict “ransomware”; or publish the PII or PHI of the firm’s clients

Advance planning is often the best defense in combating cyber risk. Companies that develop and implement a well-prepared cybersecurity strategy before a cyber incident occurs are generally in a better position to respond and survive.

•

Public relations expenses associated with restoring a firm’s reputation following a data breach

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•

The cost to replace or restore electronic data or computer programs damaged or destroyed by a virus, malicious code, or denial-of-service attack

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