Bill Clinton's appeal to business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos yesterday reminded us that Haiti's crisis is far from over. He urged the business community to step up to the challenge of supporting and rebuilding Haiti, where 200,000 are dead and 1.5 million are homeless.

"We need to get a distribution network up to get the food and the water out," Mr Clinton said. "If there's anybody who knows where I can get pick-up trucks or something slightly bigger, I need 100 yesterday."

Clinton's appeal for such basic support was disconcerting. Haiti's humanitarian relief effort had a very shaky start in spite of the rapid and generous response by world governments, charities, and the public. The first problem was the leadership vacuum created when Haiti's government and the U.N. — two bodies that should have co-ordinated the effort — themselves fell victim to the earthquake.

The second problem was poor logistics. International aid agencies and the U.S. military rapidly stepped into the breach, but failed to develop a joint strategy. The result was poor co-ordination, indecision and chaos, which meant hundreds of thousands of victims had to wait for medical aid, food, and water. Recriminations soon followed and some aid agencies appeared to turn on each other rather than focusing on the relief effort.

Earlier this week, Guido Bertolaso, an Italian government minister, commended the U.S. military's efforts but said: "We're missing a leader, a co-ordination capacity that goes beyond military discipline," while John O'Shea, head of the Irish charity Goal, said the only thing preventing a massive and prodigious aid effort was effective leadership and co-ordination. Many have suggested that Bill Clinton, as U.N. Special Envoy to Haiti, was the ideal man for that role, but he has diplomatically sidestepped such requests.

It's a pity that the business community, with its global networks and deep experience in logistics and planning, was unable to contribute more fully to Haiti's relief effort. While many advertise their socially responsible credentials, few have demonstrated real leadership in the field. Ironically, the WEF itself has pioneered a six-year Humanitarian Relief Initiative in partnership with some of the world's leading companies, yet there was little mention of this at Davos yesterday.

Smart strategies, fine words, and analysis are no substitute for action in a crisis. Crises demand leadership and swift, co-ordinated action. Whether it's contributing money, equipment, expertise, or volunteers, what matters is that it is done quickly and in consultation with others. Far better for a company to appoint a crisis response leader or logistics expert who could make a real and immediate contribution in a crisis than a smart postgraduate who can write sparkling reports on CSR strategies.

It's painfully apparent from many recent crises — the economic crisis, Enron, Katrina and others — that leadership is vital. And the absence of leadership can be devastating in its consequences. Now, more than ever in this turbulent and interconnected world, we need our leaders to step up.

What are your thoughts on the Haiti relief effort? What lessons can we learn from it? Have you seen any examples of an effective response to the crisis by the business community? Do you believe we have leaders who are capable of steering us through the many crises we face?

If the government plans to give a tax credit for new hires to small businesses, as President Obama indicated Wednesday in his State of the Union address, Congress and the administration should move fast, because of comments like this one:

Maury

January 28, 2010 07:58 PM

I'm a small business owner who is considering hiring new workers. However, I am holding off hiring in hopes of getting some incentive from the government.

Talking about a jobs tax credit, without actually passing one, might be worse than not considering it at all. The NY Times's Catherine Rampell noted this in a story in October:

The biggest fear among some, though, is that the proposal might unintentionally reduce job opportunities if it sits in Washington too long without passing.

“Particularly for big employers, if they think a job creation tax credit is in the offing, it could certainly be an incentive to delay hiring,” said Lee E. Ohanian, an economics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. “That means it could have the perverse effect of actually prolonging the recession.”

Most business owners make staffing decisions more directly based on demand for their products or services. If they need people to work another factory shift or answer the phones, they're not going to wait for a tax credit. But there are no doubt plenty companies on the edge of hiring new workers who, like Maury, are waiting to see if there's an incentive coming.

The hackers are in the oil refineries – and the gas pipelines and the power plants. So says a study the Center for Strategic and International Studies and security software firm McAfee released Thursday.

More than half of the companies running critical infrastructure such as electric grids, gas and oil supplies have sustained cyber attacks of stealth infiltrations by organized gangs or state-sponsored hackers. The rates of "stealth infiltration" were highest in oil and natural gas operation, with 71 percent claiming to have been targets.

The  cost of the downtime caused by cyber attacks is high, according to the study. For corporations, the average cost is $6.3 million a day.

The study – presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland – surveyed some 600 IT and security executives from the energy, transport, water and sewage, government, telecoms and financial sectors in 14 countries.

It's in McAfee's business interest to be alarmist, but still the findings are chilling, particularly as they come on the heels of both Operation Aurora – the high-profile episode whose targets included Google and Adobe Systems – and new revelations of orchestrated cyber attacks against Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, and Marathon Oil.

Even worse news: The risk of cyber attack – including everything from garden variety-viruses and "malware" on up to the more vicious – is rising. Nearly 40 percent of all IT executives expected a major cybersecurity incident, defined as an attack causing an outage of "at least 24 hours, loss of life or... failure of a company" in their sector within the next year, the report revealed. Four in five expected such an incident within five years.

Thanks to the recession, most IT departments are suffering budget cuts (including IT departments representing critical infrastructure). Two-thirds of those surveyed in the report – titled "In the Crossfire: Critical Infrastructure in the Age of Cyberwar" – blamed the current economic climate for shrinking security resources available, and 25 percent said resources had suffered cuts of 15 percent or more. The cuts were most severe in the energy, oil and gas sectors.

The report also showed more than half of executives have little faith that their nation's laws will deter cyberattacks. The three countries named as most vulnerable to attacks: the U.S., Russia and China. Interestingly, respondents also named the U.S. as the biggest potential source of attacks.

"When they were asked which country ‘you worry is of greatest concern in the context of network attacks against your country/sector,’ 36 percent named the United States and 33 percent China — more than any other country on a list of six," the report said. (China was praised, however, for its rapid adoption of security measures.)

Concluded the report: "If cyberspace is the Wild West, the sheriff needs to get to Dodge City."

What do you think? Have you or your business partners suffered a cyberattack recently? How did you handle it?

Do you know of any free tax preparation programs for tax professionals?