Stronger, fitter, better: Crisis management for the resilient enterprise

Deloitte’s 2018 Crisis Management Survey found that most organisations must still overcome several challenges to be ready to navigate a crisis. This report builds on the findings of our 2015 study A crisis of confidence and includes more than 500 senior crisis management, business continuity, and risk executives across 20 countries globally.
 

Key findings

Our analysis of the survey responses revealed five central insights:

• Experiencing a crisis teaches organisations to avoid them. Undergoing a crisis galvanises organisations to prioritise detecting and preventing crises in addition to managing them. 
• Leaders need more development for crisis management. Helping leaders display their full range of competencies under the extreme pressures of a crisis can support effective decision-making and communication when they are most needed. 
• Confidence outstrips preparedness. A company’s confidence in its crisis management capabilities is not always commensurate with its level of preparedness. 
• Being at the ready significantly reduces the negative impact of a crisis. This is especially true if senior management and board members have been involved in creating a crisis plan and participate in crisis simulations. 
• Third parties are part of the problem—and the solution. A number of companies are including partners and other outsider organisations in crisis planning. 

Conclusion

Truly effective crisis management goes beyond being reactive and simply protecting existing value. It also enables resilience and powers future performance, thereby enabling an organisation to emerge stronger.