Nothing tests an organisation quite like a crisis. In a global crisis management survey conducted by Deloitte, 34% of businesses that have already experienced a crisis say the most important lesson they’ve learned is to have better systems in place to identify crisis scenarios, with 29% saying they would execute a timelier and more robust communications plan. When it comes to a crisis, the struggle, though, is knowing the difference between annoying chatter and an existential crisis.
In a bid to assist clients to quickly and effectively assess and act, crisis agency 48Hours has launched a free, web-based application called Vice. It can produce valuable insight and direction for brand owners under pressure within just three minutes.
Vice provides industry-tested perspective, and a first dashboard view of what action needs to be taken. After answering a quick 4-step questionnaire related to metrics regarding Validity, Influence, Credibility and Economic Impact, the app produces a Severity Score from 0 – 100 that informs the nature of the response with proposed reactions. These range from simple monitoring to all hands-on deck.
The tool enables business leaders to quickly establish whether they have very little cause for concern or if they are facing the kind of crisis that has the potential to severely harm their business.
“Crisis readiness is something we encourage,” says Victor Dlamini, co-founder of 48Hours. “But once a real-life crisis presents itself, acting decisively is the first step towards successfully containing the fallout. The Vice tool gives you a dependable methodology to assess the magnitude of the crisis quickly,”
Mike Stopforth, director at 48Hours, says: “We designed the tool with busy executives in mind, knowing that when faced with a crisis, they need insight that can quickly aid them in making smarter, less emotional decisions to protect their brands. Our team is always a call or an email away but Vice augments that hands-on support by helping executives quickly evaluate the scale of the crisis they are faced with.”
* For more information, visit http://48h.co.za/.