Businesses are facing a new reality when it comes to crisis management. It’s not when a crisis
will hit but which crisis event is the most likely to happen next. Recent research indicates that
95% of business leaders expect to be hit by a crisis in the future. 1 Meanwhile, the frequency of
incidents that are deemed a crisis have risen by as much as 80% in a post-COVID world. This
has given rise to the term Permacrisis , defined by Cambridge Dictionary as ‘ a long period of
great difficulty, confusion, or suffering that seems to have no end .
In times of crisis, 20% of a company’s market value is at risk due to reputation damage and
25% of businesses do not reopen following a major disaster event. 1 So the new question for any
company leader or CEO’s is no longer, “if a crisis happens how prepared are you?” It is, how
prepared is your company for the next crisis that is currently forming and just beyond the
horizon now?
Fortunately, there are resources that companies can put into place now to plan and prepare for future events. A great place to start is hiring a Public Relations firm like M2KPR that specializes in Crisis Communications to develop a comprehensive Crisis Communications Plan. Or, if your company find itself in the midst of a crisis, which can range from an unhappy customer complaint, safety incident or data breach to leadership scandal, rumor or viral accusation that is spreading on social media and news platforms.
