Crisis Management

All too often, when faced with crises, companies appear to be on the defensive and inevitably adopt a reactive position. The longer a company remains in a defensive mode, the more damage it does to its reputation and the more difficulty it has to successfully emerge from the crisis.

The digital age compounds this dilemma by forcing companies to wage a battle for credibility in real time. Without sufficient experience in handling such situations, companies are left with difficult and time-sensitive choices.

Our team of consultants has managed a wide array of crises and brings its experience to bear in helping clients anticipate, sense, react to, contain, learn from and redesign effective organizational procedures for successfully managing crises.

For example, when a large American multinational software firm retained FIR to provide crisis management and strategic communications services after a security breach impacted consumers and government agencies in multiple U.S. states, we worked in coordination with the client and legal counsel to design and execute a targeted communications campaign to safeguard the firm’s reputation and help mitigate any negative impact from the crisis.

We developed a proactive disclosure strategy aimed at controlling the media narrative surrounding the breach, while reducing confusion and maintaining customer trust. We then identified key stakeholders, crafted messages that resonated with each target group and created an internal crisis management and rapid response team. We also advised the client on forward-looking steps as it moved beyond the crisis, including forging partnerships with leading domestic and global institutions in the field of cyber security.

With our help, the client sustained virtually no adverse effects as a result of the data breach and underwent a successful IPO later that year.