Corporate Crisis Management Blog

It was as recently as October 2017 that the first accusations of sexual misconduct surfaced in the mainstream media pointed at the famed and Oscar winning movie producer Harvey Weinstein.

Since then the list of famous men of (previous) good repute accused of sexual harassment and worse has been shocking, head-spinning and stoked a real anger about what had obviously been taking place unreported forever without any apparent restraints.

Imagine if your organization could get smarter and more effective at reporting and managing workplace incidents – while also saving money.

That’s what SilverStone Group, a full-service risk resource management organization headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, achieved for a big box retail client through its partnership with In Case of Crisis.

SilverStone Group has more than 200 highly qualified Associates providing property and casualty coverage, risk management, employee benefits, business insurance and financial planning services to employers and individuals.

How technology could have improved 2017’s most discussed crisis response

When Dr Dao was forcibly dragged from that United Airlines plane sitting on the tarmac at Chicago’s O’Hare airport on April 9th 2017, it was a Sunday.

Why does the day of the week matter? Because it’s not a regular business day.

We are not privy to the details of United’s process in responding to the incident, but there are reasonable conjectures we can make.

As we move into 2018, organizations of all kinds are considering ways to best prepare themselves for the business continuity challenges that lie ahead. In fact, more than 35 percent of business continuity professionals say their company will spend more on business continuity efforts over the next 12 months than in previous years. Perhaps this should come as no surprise. After all, 2017 was a dynamic year, full of countless examples of what to do and what not to do when your business is faced with difficulty.

The digital age is rapidly changing the face of risk management, and organizations are having to stay on top of the evolving risk landscape more than ever before.

This has been a vintage year for crises.

The list of famous names and brands involved in mishaps large and small is breathtaking – United Airlines (they were the biggie – several other airlines had their own problems), Equifax, Uber, Wells Fargo, Chipotle, Pepsi, Dove, Weinstein Company (and the many, many others whose male executives had their behavior towards women exposed), HBO, PWC, Yahoo, GE and…the list goes on.

Over the past months we have looked at why we appear to have entered a golden age of crisis.

One of the greatest challenges of risk management is staying on top of the various threats that plague your organization, while also keeping a lookout for new challenges and using resources strategically. It all seems very subjective and hypothetical—that is, unless you take a mathematical approach to risk using composite risk management, or CRM.

Depending on your point of view, 2017 was either a terrible year for crises – or one of the most interesting in living memory.

For those of us in the business of identifying and anticipating organizational risk and preparing crisis preparedness plans for 2018, it was the latter.

So which of the many fascinating high profile crises over the past 12 months had most to teach the rest of us?

As 2017 winds to a close, organizations across the United States are looking back on the year while also starting to plan for 2018. For most companies, this preparation should involve reassessing their business continuity plan to ensure it is ready for a new year.