Risks

A company with a poorly-executed crisis response plan risks:

• Short and long-term disruption of daily business activities
  
• Rumors, speculation and untruths dominating media coverage in the absence of clear and frequent communications from the company
• A loss of narrative control with outsiders in control of the messaging
• Loss of stakeholder confidence
• Customer cancellations
• Added regulatory investigations
• Reduced employee engagement and productivity
• Opportunistic "whisper campaign" by competitors to the media and the poaching of key customers
• Negative impacts on the company's stock
  
• Increased likelihood of stakeholders being attentive to, and participating in, negative word-of-mouth commentaries, both in person and via social media
  
• Hard-to-reverse negative public perceptions of the brand, the company's products/services, and management
  
• Increased litigation costs, fines and regulatory penalties
  
• Management shakeups as the public and board demand a "fall guy"

Opportunities

Companies that maintain a strong crisis management orientation benefit from:

• Business practices that promote transparency, access, accountability and honesty
• Increased trust, respect, and goodwill with their key stakeholders
• The ability to control and diminish the short and long-term harm a crisis may cause to the company's image
  
• A culture of crisis readiness that reduces the likelihood of panic, missteps, and poor response when an incident occurs
• A strong, appropriate and immediate response that can drastically reduce the crisis' shelf life as news and also reduce the severity of media coverage received
• Less intensity and duration of any interruptions to daily business operations
• A more secure bottom line and leadership
• A less-impaired reputation following the crisis' abatement