We are living in an age of crisis. Pandemics, ransomware attacks, hacking, and floods are some crises that can affect your business. Sometimes a malfunctioning product or a mistreated employee can cause a crisis for your business. It is important to have a crisis management plan. A disaster recovery plan and crisis management plan will help you in dealing with unforeseen events. A crisis can undo all the hard work that you have done for building your business. It will lead to terrible financial losses. In this article, we are going to talk about how you can create a crisis management plan. This plan will help you in saving your business from a crisis.
Why you should have a crisis management plan?
You can’t hide behind anybody or anything in the crisis. It is important to ensure that you are prepared for everything. This is very important for SBMs. Large corporations follow different working methods. They have a large team for dealing with the crisis. Their team can minimize the impact of any crisis. SMBs have access to fewer resources. Thus, they are vulnerable to crises. However, a small size also means that you can have a quick reaction.
COVID is probably the biggest crisis that the world has faced in recent times. More than 25% of US SMBs reported that they have faced a huge negative effect due to pandemics. Another 43% SMBs reported that they have faced a moderate negative effect. However, the life of the business is never easy. According to a report from PWC, more than 70% of management faced 3 crises on average in the last 5 years.
Every business needs to deal with tough times. Disasters are becoming more common with time due to climate change. California fires are becoming worse with time. 2022 has seen a sudden spike in cyber attacks. We can create a large list of disasters that can affect your business. However, our message is clear. You need to work on a crisis management plan if you want your business to succeed. We are going to share some simple steps which will help you in creating a crisis management plan.
Types of Crisis
You can’t create a crisis management plan until you understand what crises can affect your business. Crises can be divided into the following categories:
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Slow-burn crises
These crises were coming for a long time. However, you have not paid enough attention to their warning signs. A simple example of this will be the negative word of mouth which can turn to Internet outrage or activism against your business in the future. There are clear signs that you can follow.
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Creeping crises
These crises generally stay under the radar. It is difficult to detect them. They use other events for hiding and generally, management doesn’t connect the dots. A simple example of this is negative word of mouth for your product or services. This can lead to huge crises in the future.
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Sudden crises
These crises generally get out of hand very quickly. They can cause viable damage to your business. You can consider them as an unexpected wildfire that can destroy your business. However, these are generally caused by slow-burn crises if you don’t stop them at the correct time.
Source of Crises
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IT Crisis
If your software tool or IT infrastructure is at risk, then you are facing an IT crisis. A simple example of this will be hacking or data loss. It is important to deal with these crises as every business is using technology. You should focus on protecting your IT infrastructure from attackers.
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Survival crisis
If the existence of your company is at risk, then it is known as a survival crisis. It is the most serious type of crisis that you need to deal with. A simple example of this will be tragic earthquakes and wildfires.
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Confrontation crisis
If the company is attacked publicly on social media or press, then it is known as a confrontation crisis. A simple example of this will be unsatisfied customer reviews. If these reviews go viral on the internet, then your business can suffer a lot.
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Management crisis
If your management takes some action that harms your company, then it is known as a management crisis. A simple example of this is mistreating an employee. If you are mistreating your employee, then they can file a lawsuit against your business. Sometimes your management can buy overpriced supplies due to which you will lose money.
These are some examples of crises. They will help you in understanding what crises are. It will help you in understanding the sources of these crises. You can’t protect your business from a crisis. However, a good crisis management plan will help you in handling such events. We are going to talk about how you can handle these crises and challenges.
Stages of the crisis management plan
Most businesses think that this plan is used when something happens. However, this plan is always operational even if you are not facing any crisis. There are 4 main stages of any crisis management plan:
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Mitigation
The best way to protect your business from a crisis is by preventing the crisis. It is important to ensure that your operations are clean and straight. You can start by setting up a monitoring system. This will help you in checking when things are going wrong. You can predict in the future if your business is going to face some crisis. It will help you in catching an issue when it is in the stage of the creeping crisis.
The best thing that you can do is vulnerability audits. This will help you in detecting threats to your business and company. It will help you in finding vulnerabilities that are present in your business. The vulnerability audit should cover everything from IT to customer management to suppliers. Make sure that you are properly doing your homework. You should have a list of your stakeholders. Make sure that you have a map that you can follow for protecting your business. You have to follow the plan that will be generated in the vulnerability audit. Thus, it is the most important step in your crisis management plan.
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Preparedness
This simply means that you should have a plan for handling potential crises. These crises can be financial, social, human, digital, operational, and physical. Make sure that everyone involved in the plan knows their role. They should understand what they have to do and how to do it. This simply means that you should have a list of authorities and responsibilities. We are going to discuss these points in more detail.
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Who?
You should consider having a crisis management plan. However, this is generally not an option for SMBs. You can still appoint some managers or staff for crisis management tasks. They can help you in dealing with the crisis. You should also have reliable service providers who can help your business. Make sure that you are considering these teams when you are creating your plan:
- Emergency team: This will consist of people who are working in the management. They will have the authority for making important decisions. Thus, it is important to ensure that you have an emergency management team.
- Site emergency response team: This will consist of specialists or experts from the HR, operational, financial, and legal teams. They will help you in managing emergencies at the site level.
- Business support team: These are people who will help you in executing the decisions that you will take in the emergency meeting. They will follow the instructions of your emergency response team.
According to a report from PWC, more than 74% of companies are requesting help from other sources when they are facing a crisis. You should look for external sources that can help you in executing your crisis management plan.
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What?
Your vulnerability audit report will help you in examining different types of crises. It will help you in finding problem areas that you need to deal with. Make sure that you are setting up a solid backup plan. This will help you in operating your business with minimal downtime. You don’t need to disrupt your service by doing any maintenance. A business continuity plan will help you in ensuring that your business is always operating.
You can move your data and backups to the cloud. There are various outsourced services like IaaS, DRaaS, and SaaS that you can use. This will help your organization in maintaining business continuity during a crisis.
You can consider working with a good MSP for solving this problem. They will help you in moving your assets and data to the cloud. This will ensure that your assets and data are always available. You don’t need to worry about moving your data to the cloud manually.
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How?
You should set up a detailed protocol for dealing with crises. Make sure that you are training all the stakeholders. They should understand how important their tasks are. Also, they should understand how to execute their tasks. Make sure that you are extra cautious about the tasks and measures that you are setting up for every team. Your employees will generally perform weak under stress. The best way to solve this problem is by doing enough practice.
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Response
Communication is the most important thing during a crisis. Thus, a communication plan is very important for your business. You should consider speed and clarity.
A quick response will help you in minimizing the loss. You have to ensure that your stakeholders are always available. This will help you in reducing your response time. Your stakeholders should give clear instructions to everyone. This will help in avoiding confusion. Clear messages will also help you in saving your business reputation in case of a crisis.
Internal communication is also important. You should consider the employee or human side of your business. People will be scared during a crisis. Thus, you should reassure them. The right words will help you in pushing them forward.
You also need to communicate with the press and the community. External communication can help you in either destroying your business or saving your business. You should plan your message very carefully. Make sure that your spokesperson can speak under stress.
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Recovery
You might need to take corrective steps in the field of finance, operations, PR, HR, legal, and IT. First, you need to evaluate the crisis. This will help you in understanding the sources of the crisis. It will also help you in evaluating the damage done to your business. This evaluation can help you in finding flaws in your plan.
Your organization is always going to change with time. Thus, your crisis management plan can’t be static. You need to regularly review your plan. It is important to ensure that you are updating your plan on a regular basis. A regular test of your plan will help you in finding flaws in your plan.
Conclusion
You should ensure that your business is ready for any disaster. A crisis management plan will help you in protecting your business from these disasters. It can be difficult to create a crisis management plan for SMBs as they have limited human resources and financial plans. You don’t need an in-house DR team for guaranteeing business continuity. The best way to ensure business continuity is by partnering up with a good MSP. Prevention is the most important thing for businesses. It will help you in securing digital and physical processes. You might need to transition from the physical to digital mode.
Experienced MSPs like Bleuwire can help you with this. They will help you in creating a crisis management plan for your business. Your partners will help you in moving to digital mode. They will ensure that your essential assets are always online. You should choose your IT support wisely when you are setting up your crisis management plan. Bleuwire will help you in maintaining business continuity. They will help you avoid crises by ensuring that your IT infrastructure is secure and safe. If you need more information regarding IT security services, then you can contact Bleuwire.
Contact us today to learn about Bleuwire™ services and solutions in how we can help your business.
