Current Crisis Environment
In the face of nearly constant changes in the competitive landscape, businesses must be prepared to deal with a hypersensitive communications environment, where day-to-day business problems—like inconsistent performance, reductions in force, or management turnover—receive a level of scrutiny far beyond their actual importance. Industry blogs, financial chat rooms and a seemingly endless array of emerging social media that can broadcast news about a company around the world in a matter of seconds have been added to the 24/7 chatter of cable and online news to create an ever-larger platform for rumor, innuendo and speculation.
Absent a proven crisis management capability, adverse incidents—no matter how inconsequential or exaggerated—can severely harm a company’s performance, customer loyalty, employee morale or community standing. And, taken together these represent a significant threat to a company’s reputation, which can impact sales, market position, stakeholder trust and overall valuation.
Hawthorn works with companies to build a Crisis Management framework that prepares organizations to manage and recover from issues or events that threaten employees, customers, finances, operations, or reputation. And, when problems do occur, we provide real-time support that helps client’s manage and recover from crises. Specifically, Hawthorn helps clients:
- Identify and mitigate corporate-wide issues, risks and vulnerabilities
- Develop procedures to guide decision making during an adverse event
- Manage crisis response activities during an adverse event with experienced ‘boots on the ground’
- Orchestrate and align incident response activities
- Protect the company’s reputation
