Planning pays dividends – however big your crisis management challenge

When I embarked on this 28 day study of live crisis management, I wanted to explore the frequency and diversity of crises and issues facing organisations of all kinds every day of the year. I did so in the knowledge that despite a rash of high profile incidents and issues over the last year, too many businesses still say that a crisis of the scale experienced by BP or Toyota simply couldn’t happen to them.

The vast majority of the crises that have occurred over the first nineteen days of this study have indeed been much less dramatic than BP’s explosion. All of them have left the media spotlight more quickly. And none have inflicted such severe reputational damage. But whether incident, issue or full-blown crisis, they all require effective management and professional communication. That means processes, planning and a well-trained team. Put these in place and minor incidents can be dealt with quickly and effectively. And you can sleep easily at night in the knowledge that if tomorrow “the big one” should affect your organisation, you have the crisis communication infrastructure to effectively protect your reputation.

Today’s organisations under the media spotlight are:

Gap: clothes retailer; new logo withdrawn following consumer backlash (could this be a case of no publicity is bad publicity?)

Liverpool Football Club: sport; High Court hearing as financial issues and fight for ownership rumble on

Hewlett Packard: technology: accused of “butchery” as more job cuts are revealed

Mercedes Benz: automotive; product recall

Asda: supermarket; criticism over sale of padded bras for children