How Much Damage Do You Want to Incur From a Major Business Interruption?

Erik Bernstein crisis preparedness

Recent burst of serious disruptions highlights need for crisis preparedness and planning Ransomware hackers shut down a critical oil pipeline. A single ship blocks the entire Suez Canal. Animal rights protestors blockade four McDonald’s distribution centers in the UK, impacting 1,300 restaurants. Covid-19 disrupts every aspect of the global supply …

Coronavirus and the Permanently Changed Face of 21st Century Crisis Management

Erik Bernstein crisis preparedness

  The face of 21st Century crisis management has been permanently changed, for worse and for better, by the coronavirus threat. We have always preached the idea of preparing for the worst while hoping for the best. The reality is that most organizations don’t fully prepare for the worst cases, …

Do Your Crisis Management Firefighters Practice Their Skills?

Erik Bernstein crisis preparedness

Planning is important, but plans require practice to be used properly in a crisis Imagine you came upon a firefighting team just arrived at the scene of a fire, all milling around with leaders shouting conflicting orders, firefighters not recalling how to properly set up and use their equipment, and …

How to Spot a Crisis 101: What is a Crisis?

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Spot a crisis early to minimize damage How do you spot a crisis? Clients are frequently surprised when they bring us in because of what they’ve deemed a “potential problem” and we inform them they’re heading straight for a full-blown crisis. While it’s usually obvious once the crisis hits you smack …

Guest Post: Common Tabletop Exercise Mistakes

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Avoid problems that will hamper your crisis preparedness down the road Tabletop exercises are a powerful tool in your crisis preparedness arsenal. They allow your team to practice working together, your plans to be felt out for gaps, policies to be fleshed out, and procedures to be checked for realism and …

Is Lack of Preparedness Putting Your Organization at Risk?

Erik Bernstein crisis management, crisis preparation, crisis preparedness, Crisis Prevention Leave a Comment

A look at how few are truly prepared to face a crisis head-on While virtually all leaders will readily admit that crises which endanger reputation and the bottom line can happen at any time, far fewer are actually prepared. The infographic we’ve shared below, created by consultants at Deloitte based …

Learning from the OPM Data Breach

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Doing nothing is not a crisis management strategy that produces results The Office of Personnel Management breach is attracting a lot of attention thanks to the staggering number of federal employees possibly affected – nearly 18 million the last time a total tall was announced – and the clear lack …

Crisis Management for a Major Nor’Easter

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A scramble to prepare for this historic storm A massive blizzard is set to hit the Northeast today, and everyone from local governments and businesses to just about every major airline are putting crisis management plans into action. With three feet of snow expected to bury major metropolitan areas including …

Potential UK Laws Could Create Crisis for Messaging Apps

Jonathan Bernstein crisis management, crisis preparedness, Crisis Prevention, crisis public relations, Crisis Response, Erik Bernstein, Jonathan Bernstein, privacy breaches, public relations, reputation management, social media Leave a Comment

Evidence of the need to watch the horizon for emerging risks to your organization British prime minister David Cameron has proposed new legislation aimed at combating terrorism that would allow British intelligence agencies to intercept and decode messages between suspects. We aren’t here to speak about the politics of this …

Avoid Being Blindsided, Prepare for Crisis Management

Jonathan Bernstein crisis management, crisis planning, crisis preparation, crisis preparedness, Crisis Prevention, Erik Bernstein, Jonathan Bernstein, reputation management, social media Leave a Comment

Open your eyes and look to find weak spots where trouble could start Major organizations continue to be blindsided by crises on an almost daily basis, but how? They have the budget, they have the manpower, so what exactly is lacking that results in loss of reputation, financial woes, and …

Playing Chicken with Crisis Management

Jonathan Bernstein crisis management, crisis planning, crisis preparation, crisis preparedness, Crisis Prevention, Crisis Response, Erik Bernstein, Jonathan Bernstein 1 Comment

Having a plan in place means you won’t be left scrambling when crises appear In order to be as effective as possible, crisis planning needs to come before a crisis actually hits. While it is possible to create and enact a plan after things get messy, it’s never easy. In …