Much has been reported about the good work of CrowdStrike in responding to its crisis. While the impacts were widespread and brought global implications, company leaders did a strong job getting out to communicate early and often.
But what about the adjacent companies impacted BY the outage? They were the collateral damage. Unwittingly dragged into what was taking place—with serious negative impacts. There are important lessons about crisis contingencies for businesses in the context of what took place and the ripple effects created across multiple industries and economic sectors. Here are just a few:
A crisis generally extends to more than just the affected organization.
Understand your core vendors and business partners—and what a crisis for them could mean for you. Consider them when conducting crisis planning—and build in contingencies to mitigate disruptions. Ask the hard questions—what are their crisis preparedness plans and how will they support you if a crisis occurs in their business?
Knowing how to reach stakeholders—when core systems are unavailable—is critically important.
Whether it’s messaging your employees, alerting your customers, re-routing e-commerce platforms or shutting down services, understand your avenues for engagement. Email, texting, telephone—all may be needed—or none may be available. Pressure-test your options to see what works—and what doesn’t—before it’s necessary.
Just because you don’t have all the answers doesn’t mean you don’t communicate.
When the crisis does not rest primarily with you, you should not just shut down and wait it out. Keep all stakeholders looking at you for information—and provide reassurance through frequent information sharing and situation updates. As you get relevant details, share them. Leverage multiple channels for outreach—knowing that all may not be accessible during the crisis.
Internal and external audiences are equally important.
When a crisis occurs, it’s easy to get so focused on external business impacts that the internal team is overlooked. Whether you’re in retail contacting store-level employees, in airlines reaching pilots and flight attendants, or in manufacturing connecting with deskless workers, ensuring open and transparent lines of communication within your organization matters as much as engaging customers or shareholders.
Control what you can through readiness planning—and get comfortable not being entirely in control.
For c-suite executives and operational leaders, maintaining business continuity is the priority. Have plans in place and mitigation strategies, then test them through drills and scenario exercises. Conduct a “hotwash”—or after-action briefing—after the crisis to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement. Avoid over-reliance on one partner or system. But understand, even with all the best planning, you still may be dependent on the responses of others to get to the other side.
The essential question I ask in every crisis training—how would you reach your critical audiences if you didn’t have internet or cell service? Figure it out before you need to do so.
Hinda Mitchell is President of Inspire PR Group.