A crisis can affect any company – regardless of how small. Everyone’s definition of crisis varies only one thing is typical: that it’s a gathering that is certainly past the scope of normal business life using the potential to damage your reputation.
If you think your enterprise is not big enough to warrant gestion de crise, then you might risk unravelling plenty of brand value and marketing effort.
An emergency could take many forms – a stock-out due to strike action; a competitor sledging your reputation in the media; or a run-away community-based smear campaign on social websites.
The truth is, when your enterprise is online as most are, the exposure is greater and requires more forethought to make sure you can minimise damage to your reputation and your brand.
Yes! Online magazine recently spoke to Melbourne-based crisis expert and author Dr Tony Jaques, Managing Director, Issues Outcomes to acquire an overview of what businesses should consider when planning for a crisis management strategy.
“It’s a standard misunderstanding that only big companies and big brands need, or can afford, crisis management,” he explained.
“We know from research that lots of smaller organisations regard crisis management as too costly or way too hard to determine, and they may believe they are less probably be hit by way of a crisis.
“None of people the situation is true. Big organisations and large brands most often have more resources and in some cases in-house specialists. Along with their crises will probably make headlines. But smaller organisations are equally as much in danger and there are some basic protective actions which are not difficult and not expensive,” Tony said.
Small businesses should first identify and manage the difficulties which have the potential in becoming crises.
“Then they must put plans set up to be ready,” Tony explained. “There are simple ways to do that. Although you can’t plan for every possible crisis, every business has the things i call natural crises. These are the risks which are natural on the business and represent one of the most probable crises.
“For example, every food company ought to have plans set up to answer a potential product contamination crises; an organization handling dangerous goods should be ready for a spill or fire, and a company heavily determined by It ought to be prepared to deal with a cyber-attack or loss in data. No-one knows your company risks much better than you,” he stated.
Including the smallest business should determine who will be the nominated go-to person in the crisis. That may be the owner, the manager or perhaps a subject-matter expert. There could be another spokesperson for different types of scenarios but there must be a primary point of contact which will triage the issue and allocate the best person if neccessary.
“It’s critical everyone in your business knows who can speak for your organisation and whatever they will say,” Tony said. (Allow it to be known to all of your team in order that they usually are not tempted to handle issue themselves.) While big companies usually have experienced spokespersons, smaller organisations often come up with a 46dexepky worse by not speaking whatsoever, or saying a bad thing. Media training will not be expensive, though needs to be done just before the crisis, not when all hell breaks loose,” he explained.
Crisis management can seem to be daunting to smaller businesses though with some planning there’s certainly it’s well worth the effort. Consider it as an extension of the insurance coverage coverage.
In future articles, we’ll provide you with more descriptive easy methods to formulate a crisis management policy for your business. Right now, though, simply being familiar with the possible issues may make all the difference.
“Even a simple crisis management plan may save your business from being normally the one in four which fails to survive a crisis,” Tony concluded. “You don’t need to commit a lot of money and resources, but you have to consciously want to do it.”