Crisis Category Examples
You can expect five general categories of crisis:
- Local events of sufficient magnitude to involve corporate Headquarters. (All crises begin locally.)
- Corporate operating crises that arise from your day-to-day business activities.
- Non-operating crises, those crises not directly the result of a manufacturing or operating process or daily work routine.
- Combinations of number one, two, and three above.
- Web-based attacks/incidents.
Managers can rank all of these categories in terms of their potential severity and likelihood. Crises with the highest probabilities and highest potential impact require a crisis response plan.
1. Local events, which would draw attention to your organization as a whole, could include:
- Activist action
- Any item from the Call Headquarters If list (see Chapter 4)
- Arrest of plant manager or other senior executive
- Bomb threat
- Boycott by contractors
- Community confrontation
- Customer complaints
- Drug activity or drug raid
- Employee complaints
- Employee violence
- Indictment of local employees and managers
- Job actions
- Local labor problem gaining national attention
- Major accident or disaster
- Major negative news stories
- Outage situations
- Product boycotts
- Rumors
- Violence in the workplace
- Whistleblowers
- Work stoppage
2. Operating crises, which would draw attention to your organization as a whole, could include:
- Adverse international event
- Billing, bookkeeping, or collection errors (massive)
- Business loss (Wall Street is surprised and issues a "sell" recommendation)
- Civil or criminal litigation
- Competitor allegations
- Computer and data theft
- Computer failure
- Computer security breach
- Computer virus affecting your organization's data processing or manufacturing capabilities
- Congressional action
- Continuous deterioration of the business
- Decapitation (sudden loss of key executives, usually through accident or conflict)
- Ethics problem
- Extended loss of production capacity
- Extortion
- Financial
- Government investigations
- Hazardous material team activation
- Hostile takeovers
- Incident or disaster that gains substantial government attention
- Major chemical explosion or leak
- Major fire
- Major operations interruption
- Major power outage
- Mergers and acquisitions
- Product contamination
- Product liabilities
- Reorganizations
- Rumors that disrupt the business
- Sabotage or acts of vandalism
- Sarbanes-Oxley investigations
- Serious accident or incident involving the death of employee on the job or people in the vicinity
- Subpoenas or class action suits
- Sudden death or injury to one or more of the company's senior executives
- Sudden drop in stock price
- Transportation emergency involving a chemical leak or major health and safety threat
- Transportation emergency involving imported products
- Wall Street surprises
- Whistle-blowers
3. Non-operating crises, which would draw attention to your organization as a whole, often elicit extreme emotions and are the most dangerous and difficult to deal with. Examples include:
- Activist action or threats
- Alleged liability or negligence implicating a company employee
- Berserk employee acting alone against the company
- Bomb threat/bombing
- Chronic safety and environmental problems
- Civil and criminal investigations
- Confrontation
- Customers
- Deranged employee taking action against other employees, or the company
- Disgruntled employees
- Emergence of credible information challenging the safety or efficacy of a company product, service, or practice
- Environmental spills, accidents, fears
- Facility closings and employee layoffs
- Government actions
- Health loss/prevention
- Incapacitation of many employees
- Industrial accidents
- Investigation or indictment of the company, its employees, or former employees for alleged improprieties on or off the job
- Kidnapping
- Labor relations
- Litigation
- Major crimes
- Major negative business decisions
- Major negative criminal or civil allegations
- Major theft
- Malevolence
- Malfeasance
- Market shifts
- Organized opposition
- Outsider intervention
- Product failures
- Public attacks
- Recycling/environmental issues
- Regulation
- Rumors
- Scandal
- Sexual harassment
- Terrorist actions
- Whistleblowers
- Wildcat strikes
- Workplace violence
4. Operating/non-operating combination events, which typically produce apparent victims and draw attention to your organization as a whole, could include:
- Arson
- Bomb threat
- Boycott by vendors
- Boycott of contractors
- Competitor allegations
- Congressional action
- Contamination affecting major sections of the nation or populations
- Coordinated terrorist action
- Financial dislocations
- Incident or disaster that gains substantial government attention
- Labor relations
- Potential for government action
- Reorganizations
- Subpoenas or class action suits
- Toxic substance release under the U.S. and other national and local laws, rules, or regulations
5. Web-based attacks and competitive targeting, which would draw attention to your organization as a whole, could include:
- Activist opposition
- Angry customers
- Attack sites
- Boycotts
- CEO and senior executive targeting
- Data theft and misuse
- Distortions
- E-mail attacks
- Extortion
- Lies
- Organized opposition
- Personal attacks
- Product attacks
- Rumors
- Sexual harassment
- Short sales
- Single product targets
- Spamming
- "Sucks" sites
- Terrorism
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