Crisis management planning - the corporate blindspot
Crisis Management Planning, Crisis Response and Crisis Mitigation presents complex and tough challenges, where the consequences of failure can be deadly at both the personal and professional levels. At base, good crisis management is all about effective communications but it’s also about effective preparation. Too many brands and businesses don’t invest in the resources that allow their people to do the best job when crisis hits!
As recent crisis management research by Deloitte illustrated, there’s a huge gap between organisational vulnerability to crisis threats and corporate capability to counter crisis threats presenting.
The Deloitte study* revealed that 60% of companies say they face more crises than before, yet only 17% of crisis/risk experts actually review or test their capability. This underscores the gap between organisational vulnerability and crisis capability, and shows a somewhat cavalier or lax approach to crisis planning.
In short, if companies have more problems than ever before, yet fewer solutions or systems to manage them, that leaves glaring gaps in crisis response capability.
More worryingly, most crisis plans and processes are based in ‘old era’ crisis paradigms, which fail to recognise the new context, media, technologies and issues presenting. So, what should organisations be doing or putting in place to help mitigate threats and manage crises effectively?
Our easy-read checklist can help you gauge your level of crisis readiness and offer a few insights to help you address your crisis management deficiencies:
A pre-nominated, Crisis Activation Team
A Crisis Management Plan (refreshed annually)
Crisis Simulation Exercises (rehearsed at least annually)
Crisis Management and Incident Notification Softwares
Supplementary Services and Retained Consultants (on retainer standby)
Discretionary Crisis Budget (your rainy day/crisis fund)
Virtual Crisis Command Centre (secure video-conf portal w/access to Intranet & Documents)
While this looks like a daunting list, many of the items only cost time and organisation to put their capabilities in place. The easiest way to assess your entity’s state of crisis management capability is to run a Crisis Audit or book a FREE consultation with crisis experts. We welcome your call or enquiry, if issues and crises are playing on your mind. Thanks.
gerry@thedrill.com.au