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Crisis
Readiness and Crisis Management - the Hoptoad Way
A
crisis - a massive disruption that could wreck your reputation, injure
your profitability and endanger the survival of your business - might
be threatening your company, and you might not know it.
Worst
still, you might not be equipped to deal with it when it hits.
And
if you don't get it right you may not have a business a month from now.
We
know this - we've seen it. And we can help you prepare so you can come
through.
But
better still - we can help you see the crisis coming, and then pre-empt
it.
It
couldn't happen to us!
That's
what we all say, even when we see some outfit not unlike our own enduring
loss, public torment and perhaps even terminal decline.
But
ask yourself if any of the following could happen in your own business:
- An
industrial accident or a natural disaster could wipe out assets, disrupt
supplies, eliminate customers. And it might kill some employees, whose
expertise you've depended on, and injure others, or render them homeless,
and they'd be looking to you for support...
- A
rogue employee has been breaking the rules - big time. Perhaps he's
been embezzling, or cutting corners as regards health and safety regulations,
or cheating the tax authorities to maximise your profits and his annual
bonus. Your systems should have detected this long before now - but
they didn't - and now you've got to carry the can, financially and legally...
- Your
products are renowned for their safety, nutrition or hygiene. You take
quality assurance seriously and quote it in your advertising. But something
has gone wrong, and a sub-standard batch has reached the market - and
customers' lives and your reputation are at stake...
- The
communities in which you are located and do business have always seen
you as a valued neighbour, a force for good. But values are changing
and new groups have emerged which challenge your right to operate. Inexplicably,
they seem to gaining support - and government approval for that expansion
that's vital for your business plans suddenly seems less certain...
- You
manufacture your products in a developing country. You're paying your
employees well above the national average and their working conditions
meet, maybe exceed, local regulations. You buy in raw materials and
services, boosting the local economy. Then suddenly you're facing product
boycotts in the developed countries where you market your products -
because you were unaware how your sub-contractors and local suppliers
were operating. And you're shocked when you find out...
Can
you see it coming?
The
answer is usually "Yes" - but it won't happen automatically.
You'll
need to step back and look at your business very objectively. Any you
may not like what you see:
- Threats
that are uncomfortable to think about and difficult to describe or quantify.
They might be natural, political, economic or commercial - or they might
be inherent in nature of your business;
- Trends
in society or the economy, locally or internationally, which may seem
weak today but which would have serious negative implications for your
business were they to grow stronger;
- A
"fool's paradise" ethos in your organisation. It has never
faced a crisis and doesn't expect to either. So the procedures and facilities
- and most of al the mental attitudes - are not in place to deal with
a massive disruption of normal business should it occur;
- Hostility
to what you do and what you represent. No matter how ethical and socially
constructive you may think your activities are, there may be groups
out there who loathe you and who will be ready to disrupt you business.
You may be underestimating them - and you may be in for a nasty surprise;
-
Lack of allies. Your business needs the cooperation of a wide range
of third parties - "stakeholders" is the fashionable term
- to function and to thrive. They include employees and customers, but
also possibly government at several levels, communities in which you
operate, the media and, increasingly, NGOs, Non-Governmental Organisations.
If you lose the support, or at worst, the neutrality, of these groups,
then you can be in very serious difficulty, and you may realise it when
it's too late.
What
can you do?
The
short answer is "Prepare".
And
if you are prepared there's a good chance you can pre-empt as well, by
putting measures in place that defuse the potential for a crisis, and
you can most certainly ensure that, if the crisis still happens, you can
minimise loss and get back to normal as quickly as possible.
5
steps are necessary and Hoptoad Enterprises can assist at every stage:
1.
Recognise Vulnerabilities
Map out why, how and when you are vulnerable.
2.
Pre-empt Threats
Identify and implement measures to reduce or eliminate exposure.
3.
Prepare for the Worst
Develop Crisis Management procedures and train staff to use them.
4.
Exercise Regularly
Test your organisation's readiness when failure will cost nothing.
5.
Monitor and Update
Your vulnerabilities will change over time - so too must your responses.
You'll
need to do all this in parallel with your normal business activities.
You're going to have to involve some of your best people, who you also
need for other things. You don't want to spend more time than you have
to - and you don't want to re-invent the wheel and learn by tail and error
what others have learned before you.
That's
where Hoptoad Enterprises can help, bringing in expertise in organisation
of crisis response and drawing on experience of actual crises. Hoptoad
Enterprises will help you set up your own team - a small, effective, fit-for
purpose team - which can do the necessary analyses and set up the necessary
processes to ensure crisis readiness. Hoptoad Enterprises can offer a
range of analytical techniques and templates, facilitate workshops, provide
training, devise and conduct exercises, draw lessons and recommend improvements
but it does so in consultation with the client company, and ideally fronted
by its staff, so that the resulting processes earn buy-in through credibility
and pragmatism.
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