Banks, oil companies, an airline, dead mice and a PR agency in crisis and issues management spotlight

It’s day five of our 28 day investigation into the crisis and issues management challenges facing businesses around the world, and the incidents keep coming:

ACS Law: law firm; online attack resulting in publication of private and personal information

Barclays: financial services; customer bricked up their entrance in protest against treatment of small businesses

Chevron: oil; Greenpeace protest against deepsea oil drilling

Ketchum: PR agency; vote-rigging (!!)

Premier Foods: food production; product integrity – dead mouse found in loaf of bread

Segway: technology/transport; potential safety fears following death of company founder whilst using his own product

Virgin Blue/Accenture: airline/IT consultancy; system failure causing travel chaos [With thanks to Craig Velenski for bringing this crisis to my attention]

The range of sectors and the type of crises are incredibly diverse, but they all drain management time, usually cost money and pose a real reputational risk to the organisations in question. The key to the scale of the damage caused is almost always determined not by the crisis itself, but by the way that the organisation responds to it. Being geared up to do so swiftly and professionally are pre-requisites for success.