Crisis Management in Business

What is Crisis Management?

Crisis management is a process to defend against any future or prevailing crises in the organization. It is a series of steps that the firm includes in its strategic business plans to deal with any uncertain ruinous events. A crisis ruins the whole business that becomes adversely difficult to overcome.  In this blog, we will learn about crisis management in business.

 

Plans and strategies on crisis management begin much earlier than any real crisis taking place. These strategies are counterattacks in order to defend against any future crises. Unprepared teams may have serious consequences like:

 

• Unprepared employees may find it difficult to cope
• Financial disruptions
• Inaccurate or slow solutions in lack of time

 

The further your company grows, the more prone it is to future crises. It never comes seeing the size of the firm. For example, let us talk about the most recent global pandemic, Covid-19, where almost the whole economy got dusted off. It was unimaginably difficult for businesses worldwide to start again or gain the same profits. Everything had taken serious turns within the first six months. Small-scale companies had nowhere to go resulting in their shutting down.

 

It is definitely something you are never prepared for, but you wished you were once you undergo such situations. 

What are the different stages of Crises?

Crises come in three broadly categorized stages. Once understood, it would be easier for us to detect more business-level strategies and strengthen your organizational performance management. 

Pre-crisis stage

The pre-crisis stage is the first and foremost part which is actually the phase before a crisis ever takes place in a company. It includes building strategic business plans, having demo rounds to test its efficiency, taking feedback, reducing the risk depending upon the situation that may arise. 

Response to Crises

This is the second stage where a crisis has already hit the business or organization. It is the stage that calls for strategy implementation. It requires analyzing the crisis and use its defense mechanisms to survive the situation.

Post-crisis response

 Companies reflect upon taking supplementary measures after facing a crisis in the market. They build ways to improvise their strategies in an enhanced manner food future years. 

Examples of the most iconic business crises in the market 

United (2017)

It is not new to hear the most iconic crisis of United Airlines, where 2017 came with news of two teenagers been restricted from entry due to ‘inappropriate leggings’ according to the gate agents. This incident was tweeted by another passenger that got viral overnight, followed to which there was another scandalous event. This time it was a passenger who was dragged from a seat due to overbooking. Well, it might have looked so, but the real scenario was that the airline was barring the customer from using one of the airline’s employee seats. 

 

Within 24 hours of this incident, they lost around $800 million in total value. 

Cadbury’s worm-infested chocolate bars (2003)

None of us can forget the 2003 scandalous night when news started arising about the worm-infested Cadbury bars. Though the company had denied any chance of contamination, even changed their packaging along with updated publications to maintain safe productions. Yet, Cadbury’s fell down for all chocolate lovers for quite a few months. 

 

Cadbury’s did face a huge surge in their company. Still, soon after, they got back and reclaimed their throne by improving their organizational performance management systems with the help of their aggressive advertisements and more strategic business plans for serving the present. 

Johnson & Johnson’s cyanide-laced Tylenol Capsules (1982)

Who can forget the classic case of Jhonson & Johnson setting the crisis PR? The year 1982 was a huge backlash in the adversity of Jhonson & Johnson company due to the death case of seven people in Chicago in 1982 after using extra-strength Tylenol capsules. It was reported to contain cyanide that proves fatal for human bodies. 

 

There was mass oppression by followers and buyers. Thirty-one million bottles ($100 million worth) were pulled down from their shelves, with both production and advertisements stopped. Despite the failed attempts to find the real killer, J&J reclaimed its position by handling the public outrage really well and improving the customer-care operations. 

How to handle crises in your business?

Handling the crises takes a lot of careful efforts and repeated backlashes with media and public outrages. Something that we already understood by the examples. But, with the right business strategy planning and taking the right step at the right time shows our goodness and honesty.

1. Assemble a professional crisis management team

It is rather a great idea to keep a trained professional team to operate during crises conditions. As we know, even a little piece of misplaced information can spark a fire that takes seconds to reach the media and then to the public. Therefore, there must be well-trained individuals to lead the situation calmly with valid explanations to the world during a crisis. 

 

It is one of the strongest of all strategic business plans that can be added to your list.

1. Patience is a great virtue

Professional business coaches guide companies in operating exciting tasks with immense patience. Similarly, when in a huge crisis or pre-crisis stage, you must be calm and patient mentally. It gives you the time to rethink from level zero and stack steps that need to be implemented at the right time. 

1. Assess your weakness

When formulating strategies in the pre-crisis stage, you must do several tests to prove their authenticity and liability. These tests require robust analytics. Sometimes it includes the indulgence of business intelligence analysts to track the reports and advancements. 

 

In addition to this, one major step is to understand and reflect upon your weakness. Weaknesses are bound to pull us down. It may be a lack of confidence, communication, decision-making, or panicking. And there’s nothing to be shy about. Assessing weaknesses of yours and your team is extremely important as strengthening them would come to power and use while facing uncertain crises.

1. Start Brand Monitoring

This is where a social media team comes to use. Brand monitoring is equally important as it saves you from continuous criticisms. Certain advanced reputation management tools, both free and premium, are available for detecting any negative comments or objections against the company. One such example is ‘Google Alerts.’

 

You must open notifications for the company’s name and for the owners and higher parties to know where the issue is at stake. Also, a social media team can handle feedback much efficiently by replying properly and intelligently. 

The Bottom Line

Besides having practical strategic business plans, an organization deals with several crises – some externally, some internally. Situations can even be natural or artificial. Earthquakes, global shutdowns, natural calamities, artificial calamities may lead to business crises and failures. On the other hand, sometimes crises can emerge within a company, such as jealous business partners, employees, or unattentive staff members. 

 

The best method that helped companies overcome fear and gain confidence even in such major situations is reading through some real-life crises managements by suffered companies. Documentaries or case studies are great sources to provide information and enlighten you about the horrific webbed scenarios. 

 

Additionally, when in major loss and inevitable situations, a list of professional consultancy firms and agencies come to use for crisis management and improving your organizational performance management like Expert Mind Solutions.