Article by: Sara Pantaleo
Crisis management is a necessary skill for any business to have. It’s the process of identifying threats and mounting an effective response to prevent further damage or loss.
Businesses that plan to prevent crises from spinning out of control can limit the damage when something goes wrong. This process, known as crisis management, is essential for any company’s survival today, where bad news travels fast online.
Organisation threat
The first step in any company’s risk management plan is to analyse the threats and what may go wrong. This process, called “risk assessment,” looks at the potential adverse events and their likelihood of occurrence so you can make informed decisions about how best to protect yourself from these threats and prepare for the best- and worst-case outcomes.
Types of crises
Whether it be financial consequences like losing customers due to their fear over finances; or emotional implications such as anger towards employees who caused panic among coworkers because they didn’t know what was happening at work resulting from misinformation spread by people with vested interests within those narratives (this could lead them into dangerous situations); tangible ones where assets fall apart without enough staff on hand- all this contributes towards decreased productivity which can ultimately fail business strategy.
The key types are:
- Financial Crisis.
- Personnel Crisis.
- Organizational Crisis.
- Crisis of Malevolence.
- Technological Crisis.
- Natural Crisis.
- Confrontation Crisis.
- Workplace Violence Crisis.
Having a crisis management plan in place means you can prepare for the worst outcomes should a threat come to fruition. For example, destroying a company’s computer systems would be disastrous. It would mean a loss not only on current projects but also on customer and supplier data!
When you know what you are dealing with regarding possible risks and impacts, your plan will include a backup mitigation plan to minimise negative impacts. For example, you might create a backup system for all computer systems. This way, their data and work processes will still be saved in case anything happens to any particular machine or network connection!