Every company is subject to a crisis. The days of ignoring and hoping that the issue would go away are over. Crisis management should not just be reactive; it should also include proactive steps and planning ahead of time to avoid future disasters.
Effective crisis management has the ability to significantly lessen the amount of damage caused by the crisis to the organization. But where do you start? Building problem and crisis management strategies may seem difficult if you are new to the process and if you don’t have the assistance of professionals such as Declan Kelly and many others.
Luckily, this article provides you with the most important steps in crisis management:
Risk assessment
Before you can really start to address concerns, you must do a risk assessment. Begin by making a list of all important risks and vulnerabilities that potentially affect the company with members of leadership, your crisis response team, and other important stakeholders. Public relations errors, social media gaffes, product recalls, cyber-attacks, workplace difficulties, and severe weather disasters are all examples of these.
Business impact
A business impact analysis (BIA) confirms the probable effect of a business-disrupting problem. A BIA is a critical step to ensure your firm is factoring in all threats. Furthermore, it can help in making a business case for those who do not value problems and crisis management strategies. Completing a BIA uncovers many implications, including:
- Customer frustration or loss
- A damaged public image
- Losing/delayed sales/income
- Increased costs
- Penalties
Identify your contingencies
Once you’ve discovered what threats potentially harm your firm, you must start finding ways to react to each of them. Consider all possible methods needed to remedy the situation, the resources necessary, and how employees can assist.
It may include your digital team making statements across all of your social media channels while your customer service staff gets instructed on what to say to people on the phone.
Creating the crisis management plan
Work with key stakeholders to flesh out the plans after you’ve selected a contingency for each potential threat. A department head may assist in providing insight into resources and possible challenges. Also, additional parties, such as contractors and partners, may be essential.
Also, be mindful of any applicable regulatory standards, and consider how you will satisfy them, even during a crisis.
Let everyone know
People demand rapid access to plain information during the critical moments of a crisis. To begin, make certain that your personnel has access to the information they need. Consider using a crisis management app, which provides real-time access to up-to-date documents, event reporting, contact lists, messaging capabilities, and collaboration tools, to swiftly and efficiently deploy a crisis management playbook.
Declan Kelly CEO of Teneo, says that businesses that indulge in self-crisis management are more prosperous than those that depend on the government to help. To be successful, regular drills and rehearsals should be held to ensure that everyone is acquainted with the plan, can react confidently, knows where to acquire further information, and is aware of their responsibilities.
