Saving your Business’s Pulse
When a crisis strikes, time is short, and clarity is essential. Whether it’s a breakdown in operations, a reputational hit, or internal upheaval, the key to crisis recovery is decisive action with in mind the idea that, just as in the human body, every component of an organisation is interconnected; a crisis in one area can send shockwaves through the entire ecosystem. Whether operational or cyber-related, these disruptions can threaten the core stability of your business.
Different types of crisis
Internal source
- Scandals (leadership, financial, legal, environmental, etc.)
- Product Defect
- Workplace accident
- Customer Service Failure
- Technology Failure
- Disruptive solution launch
- Management Crisis
EXTERNAL SOURCE
- Natural Disaster
- Pandemic
- Cyber-Attack
- Supply-Chain Disruption
- Customer backlash
- Resistance to adopt a disruptive solution
hYBRID SOURCE
- Regulatory and compliance breach
- Stakeholder/Investor leak
- Customer-Driven Reputation Damage
Overcoming a crisis is ultimately a question of common sense and logic, apart from the experience and the mental.
The 6-Step Crisis Recovery Journey
Before taking action, a clear understanding of the problem and the situation is crucial.
Clear communication is vital to prevent further panic, misinformation and bad rumor.
Reacting is not enough. Organising the reaction is key to regain control and mitigate further damage.
Once the crisis is stabilised, the next focus is prevent any further escalation.
Crisis recovery is a dynamic process needing contant monitoring/adjustment to be communicated.
After the crisis has been resolved, the learning is not over. A post-crisis review is essential to improve further resilience.
Situation Assessment
A rapide but thorough situation analysis is vital.
These are the 3 steps we follow to help yo get
a comprehensive idea of the situation.
We identify the root cause
What triggered the crisis? Internal miscommunication? Neglect of a rule? External factors? Are there multiple factors? How was the issue discovered?
We gauge the 360° impact
Who is affected (employees, clients, suppliers, partners, investors, etc.)? What areas of the business are most at risk (finance, reputation, operations)? What is the crisis severity?
We quickly deliver a crisis report
It summarises the major fact-based findings that will lead to the best decisions to be agreed by the management.
Immediate Communication Strategy
Our objective is to master the narrative with the right communication strategy, we will agree on.
Internal Communication
Key team members must be informed asap about the crisis. They are your best ambassadors. We support you to craft compelling message through the right channels about the next steps that are being taken, the role they will
have to play, and the rules they will have to respect.
Regular updates must be setup.
External Communication
We guide you to define the message to stakeholders, clients and media. It must be controlled with an acknowledgement of the issue, the outline of the next steps that will be taken, and the needed tone of voice and information elements that will reassure without making promises that cannot be kept. Regular updates will be organised through the best channels.
Recovery Action Plan
Very quickly, we will develop together a clear, time-bound recovery plan,
where the roles and responsibilities will be clearly set.
critical issues prioritised
Again, we follow the common sense to identify immediate actions that will have the biggest impact on stabilising the situation, depending on the severity of the crisis, It could be restoring service, migitating financial losses, or addressing client concerns.
tasks & resources
Who’s in charge of what, when and how? We support you to build your crisis team, make sure that every member knows their responsibility and has the resources they need to carry out their tasks. Depending on the context, we use different tasks management tools to monitor progress.
deadlines
It’s crucial to identify the key escalation phases that will lead to define the milestones in the recovery plan. We help you break down the plan into manageable, time-sensitive tasks along with clear deadlines for completion.
Risks Mitigation
Once the situation is stabilised, time is to focus on preventing any further escalation.
Ongoing Risk Evaluation
What could go wrong next?
Is there a risk of a secondary crisis?
(financial instability, bad comments on social media,
fake news propaganda, etc. )
We analyse these questions with proven tools in order to put in place the right processes.
Containing the Issues Impact
At this stage, it’s crucial to prevent further damage, all the more we never know how long the crisis effect will last. We support you to put temporary measures in place and execute them to contain the issues. Pausing risky operations, communicating with key partners, or monitoring the situation more closely.
Escalation Framework
It’s at this stage that we often think we shouldn’t have put escalation procedures in place BEFORE the crisis. These procedures define how and when to escalate issues, who must be involved and how they will be communicated. During a crisis, we are in constant touch with your the senior management, all the more if the crisis requires additional resources.
Monitoring & Constant Communication
Crisis is not static. It’s a dynamic process that needs constant monitoring and adjustments. Therefore, we help you to monitor the crisis evolution until it is resolved with different proven tools.
KPIs
Response time, client sentiment, operational stability… The battery of KPIs can be long and is tailored to the company and the type of crisis.
Check-ins
It’s crucial to keep the involved team aligned with quick daily briefings to discuss progressm roadblocks, and new issues.
Updates
Any small victory is worth to be communicatd to the team and stakeholders. It builds momentum and confidence in the recovery process.
Post-Crisis Review
After the crisis has been resolved, the learning isn’t over. We support you to improve your future resililence.
What worked, what didn’t
We produce the post-crisis report, where the steps taken are documented along with the effectiveness evaluation. We underline the areas of improvement in your organisation, whether in terms of technology, workflow, procedures, communication, training, etc. When needed, we put at your disposal our experts network to dig in the different identified areas.
Crisis management plan
If you didn’t have a crisis management plan before the crisis, the event is a good opportunity to create one, based on experience. If you had one already, take this occasion to improve it with the insights gained.
It will be a good basis to develop tailored training exercices.
Care the team
We conduct interview with the team, individually and collectively to gather their input. The idea is to evaluate their skills – the ones demonstrated and the missing ones; their experience and their feeling.
This feedback will help to adjust the needed training and procedures, and clear the potential traumas.
Our Success Stories
Learn how we save a strategic project, or support an organisation that has been cyberattacked, or even help a senior manager to resolve a deep team crisis.
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