How a crisis is dealt with can be a sink or swim situation for a company or individual. My personal experience with crisis situations comes from when I worked at Subs N Suds during my undergrad. March started with the computer system going down for the whole store. This meant that there was no way for employees to clock in, no way to take orders through the system, and no way to accept credit cards. The system was down for roughly three weeks because of the three companies that were brought in to fix the system, none were able to fix it. The system was finally fixed for one day, the next day the system was down again. That night after the store closed, the store was broken into and robbed.
The General Manager Sprang into action. He immediately got the owner involved to be able to gather the cash needed to Start the day. Employees were organized quickly to clean (once the police left). The Security company was brought in to determine why the alarm did not sound. Everything was handled well by the manager to make sure business continued as usual. Because of the actions of management, we were still able to turn a profit for the month.
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One company that I think is facing a crisis right now is Blockbuster. DVD rental kiosks such as RedBox and services such as Netflix and Gamefly have cut into their market share faster than they expected. Their only means of combat was to try to adapt to the same practices those businesses had such as taking away late fees, offering their own online rental services, and offering a service to stream their movies through TIVO. However, nothing they have tried has been successful. The only option Blockbuster has to offset their quickly falling revenues has been to close stores down. The one in Indiana closed down. As far as I know, two have closed down around the areas I frequent in Pittsburgh and I work at one in Pittsburgh that is closing in January. There is only one more left that’s in a fairly convenient location of me within Pittsburgh. The management has tried almost everything to combat this but the only option I can see for them to survive is changing their format up. Here’s a link talking about Blockbusters current woes:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre5ab5dg-us-blockbuster-results/
At my high school, they have different plans for their crisis communication. When I lived in Florida and Texas for elementary school, we practiced drills every so often in case of Tornadoes. If the alarm went off we would have to craw under our desks and curl up into a ball. Although our school, never had a tornado, we were definitely ready.
ReplyDeleteWhen I got into high school, we had different codes meaning different drills and such. We had a code yellow and a code red. The code yellow meant that no students were supposed to be in the halls and when the code yellow took place, the teachers would look out in halls and tell students to go back to their class. On a code red the teachers would have to have the students come into their classrooms and then lock the doors. The code yellow and red were not used to often and were basically used if someone got sick or hurt and they had to get a nurse to the student/ person. This just basically made sure the halls were clear. In addition the code yellow and red were also used if someone was in the school or on grounds that was not supposed to be there.
Just like in elementary school, in high school we never had any problems. But it was nice to know and be reassured that we would be safe if the situation arose.
Crisis is a disaster that may happen either by human error, intervention or by natural forces. A crisis can include both tangible and intangible damage which typically share some common characteristics. In most of the cases the crisis can’t be predicted but the organizations have to plan ahead of time for any possible problems which can occur.
ReplyDeleteMy Real Life Example:
Back in INDIA apart from construction business we have a factory where we produce agriculture implements, and the peak season of the sales is during summer’s time. So in order to meet the demand of the peak times we start stocking up finished goods ahead of time. It was a scenario of around 5 yrs ago, when we went stock out just because we cannot predict the demand properly and hence we had to outsource the production to the other factory at much higher prices in order to keep our name intact. Thus I still remember those days when we were giving handsome amount of money to the outsourced company than making anything out of the profit. Since then we always have a criteria to overproduce than to get stock out because going stock out in any business is the worst thing one can have.
http://www.12manage.com/methods_crisis_management_advice.html
In January 2008, french bank Société Générale announces a loss of approximately 7 billion euros because of banker Jerome Kerviel. In full year of financial crisis, Société Générale will be in first line. The bank represents in the media the abuses and the madness of a system perverted by the speculation. In 2009, all is to be rebuilt for the General society in terms of communication. The bank, certainly much more overdrawn in image than in capital, owes “humanization”. The objective is more than obvious if one observes the vast campaign of deployed communication.
ReplyDeleteBy this campaign, Société Générale transforms its bankers into social workers. The banker is not any more the man of money but the helping friend, the support. He is not any more one diabolic caricature but a man, here “Patrick”. Its support is staunch and its steadfast presence: throughout the spot, Patrick remains on his chair, serene and available. The banker is not here any more the man of the great profits but of the small needs: he helps to move, to settle and undertake. Société Générale “does not lend” not, it “helps”.
here is a short link to an ad after the scandal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTZYuGYv1BU&feature=related
Crisis can come in many forms, sometimes it is a personal loss, sometimes it is business issues. But the one thing all losses have in common are that they have to be endured.
ReplyDeleteIn many cases, such as natural disasters, a crisis in which all boundries are crossed occurs. I experienced this during the time I lived in South Florida. Florida is known to occasionally have to deal with hurricanes. Hurricane parties are a well-known experience there. However, Hurricane Andrew brought a new awareness to the entire region.
While most Floridians have some sort of plan, many near misses by hurricanes tend to soften the need for extreme action. When news of hurrican Andrew came, most people took the basic precautions and waited for news that the storm had been downgraded or had changed course. However, hurricane Andrew kept a fast steady pace and cut through Dade county at a category 5 stregnth.
I remember standing outside watching the sky as the terrifying outer bands came ashore. We took everything inside, padded the room where my children were and kept the TV onto the weather channel. My children cried as we lost our patio roof and as the tree in our front yard fell, but we were greatful as the morbid reports from 50 miles south of us came in.
Business' were devasted, homes distroyed, and lives were lost. However, while many people were caught somewhat unexpectedly, I believe that due to many crisis plans, many lives had been saved. You can never completely plan for every crisis, but you can minimise the damage that can occur by having some sort of crisis management plan.
Many lives were saved and many lessons learned. Here is a link to an article from a south Florida business that felt they had a proper crisis plan and realized after hurricane andrew, what greater legnths needed to be taken and how their plan has been improved/
http://www.restaurant.org/RUSA/magArticle.cfm?ArticleID=389
It has been discussed in class and throughout the blogg how crisis' can effect people and companies in a myriad of ways. My personal take on the situation has to deal with the unpredictability of the situations. Any respectable company or organization has developed crisis plans for many situations, but by its nature I do not believe that anyone can be truly prepared for a crisis. The way in which the problem is handled has everything to with the decisions that are made by those involved. Every crisis situation that I have been involved with has been unique enough to throw many of the crisis protocols out the window.
ReplyDeleteFor example during my time with Blockbuster I was witness to shop lifting, armed robbery, and a car even drove through my store once. Every employee had trained in methods to handle each crisis, however during the time immediately following each event that training I feel was largely forgotten and pure instinct took over to manage the situation as effectively as possible. After the immediate aftermath had been dealt with and most of the potential danger has been dealt with is when the set standards and expectations returned to reality. Thankfully in each situation I had staff that were willing to listen to me have one voice directing the situation rather than panicking and starting a fray of chaos.
Among the examples of communication of well managed crisis, I’m thinking of a really good example, how the French company Aeroport de Paris managed the collapse of the Terminal 2 at the airport of Paris-Roissy. The designation of a credible spokesperson into external and recognized in-house for its expertise, the coherence of the speech throughout the crisis (a single spokesperson) and the strategy of acceptance which was selected (one assume and one manages) are the ingredients. However, it was indeed about a serious accident and very media.
ReplyDeleteAt the end, it was a great victory for Aeroport de Paris, which results from a drama: collapse, in May 2004, of part of the roof of the terminal 2nd of the airport of Roissy-Charles-Of-Gaulle, making several victims. This building, floret and pride of the company, had just been inaugurated.
As a whole, the difficulty for the company was to face whereas the causes of collapse and the detail of the responsibilities were going to be known only at the conclusion of a long investigation. While ensuring the continuity of the service - no flight was cancelled -, the company sought, at all costs, not to emit untruths, not to make the play of the competitors and to counter their actions of lobbying.
Airports of Paris did not haggle over the means to answer the requests and to facilitate the work of the media. The company thus multiplied the conferences for the press and media, to teach and explain which the various actors are implied in the design and the construction of this type of work, and how an airport functions.
Their communication strategy rests on three strong points: transparency, the valorization of the effort and compassion. The company, for example, organized a ceremony of the memory with the families of the victims on the tarmac. It, in addition, proposed the strong internal mobilization (the employees spontaneously came to propose their assistance), while communicating on the “yellow waistcoats”, symbol of service ADP. More than one year after the catastrophe, the reputation, the image and the notoriety of the company were reinforced. And the media noise around this event grew blurred to leave room to a “positive” topicality on the development, the change of status and the next stock market entry.
Interview of the spokesperson: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6knuz_la-communication-de-crise-jp-beaudo_news