Thousands of organizations continue to believe that they don’t need a crisis management plan. “At the Institute for Crisis Management® (ICM), we find that management denial is the most common reason organizations are unprepared for the inevitable,” said Deborah Hileman, SCMP, President and CEO. “The crises that continue to overwhelm companies comprise a variety of smoldering issues that, if left unchecked turn into the kinds of headline-grabbing crises that end executive careers, ruin financial performance and damage reputations that took decades to build. In 2019, of the more than 760 thousand crisis news stories we tracked, 77% were related to smoldering problems that could have been prevented or mitigated had management addressed them sooner.”
The 2019 ICM Annual Crisis Report is a compilation of news, trends and highlights of those industries that were most prone to crisis during the year. Leaders can gain valuable insight on the impact crises have on the organization, the industry and its stakeholders. According to the report, the top crisis category in 2019 was (again) mismanagement, followed by sexual harassment, cyber crime, discrimination and labor disputes.
The year’s most crisis-prone industries were aviation, banking and financial services, technology, education, transportation, pharmaceuticals, food and retail.
“Unfortunately, the sheer numbers of negative stories in the news tell us that organizations appear no better prepared for crisis than a year ago. Boards of directors are still disengaged with the potential for crisis and executive managers fail to invest in much-needed crisis planning and preparedness efforts,” she said. Hileman urges leaders to invest in comprehensive crisis communication planning and crisis management training programs to prepare, prevent and mitigate the kinds of crises that impact an organization’s reputation, brand, business and financial performance.
