What if?....

Fire, flood, cyber attack, industrial action, terrorism, financial impropriety and scandal – the news is full of high profile disasters and crises and the impact they have on people’s lives and businesses.
Thankfully Crises Or Disasters don’t happen every day, but when they do we need to be prepared to respond to them.
Of course we don’t know what will happen, when it will happen or exactly what the impact will be. However, common sense tells us that at the very least it is a good idea to have a team of people pre-identified who are ready to come together at short notice to make decisions and take action, and that they should have had some training to prepared them for this role.

Whilst this may sound obvious there are many examples of organisations that that have failed to take the most fundamental steps to get prepared for the ‘what if’ scenarios. This can be costly, both in terms of the impact on people’s lives and your ability to maintain business in the face of disruption not to mention protecting your reputation and how people perceive you.

By their very nature, when disasters or emergencies happen they tend to bring chaos – turning life on its head and creating turmoil and disruption. The impacts can be far reaching and long lasting.
Whilst it may seem daunting, Crisis Management is just good management, usually within the context of a a highly pressurised situation. Decisions may need to be taken at speed without knowledge of the full facts of the situation. This means, it can be stressful and things can go wrong.

Making good decisions under pressure is of course perfectly possible. Rarely however, does it happen by accident.
Without a plan in place, there is a chance you may muddle through relying on the good will and experience of your staff, but the cost can be unnecessarily high and some organisatons never fully recover.
EllisNorton is an established and independent specialist consultancy that helps organisations successfully prepare for and respond to disruptive events – no matter what the cause.
Whatever the size, scale or nature of your organisation, we will use our extenstive expertise and experience to work collaboratively in order to develop pragmatic and workable solutions.