International SOS Reveals Top Crisis Management Weaknesses

New Crisis Management Gap Analysis Solution helps companies fortify their crisis defences.

International SOS, the world’s leading health and security risk services company, provides insight into some of the key crisis management ‘gaps’ companies face. Having supported thousands of organisations and their employees through the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a myriad of other complex and challenging medical and security events and incidents over the past 35 years, International SOS has drawn on its experience of hundreds of working models to identify these gaps, providing guidance on crisis management best practice.

Major Weaknesses in Crisis Management Preparations include:

• Lack of clear roles and responsibilities in times of crises (overlap and confusion between HQ’s and local sites) leading to ineffective crisis response.
• Delayed response time (HQ, local-sites).
• CM strategy not including secondary security incidents arising from events such as natural disasters, pandemics, etc.
• No clear de-escalation plans in place can lead to organisations being stuck in a ‘crisis loop’, unable to travel a pathway to recovery.

James Wood, Head of Security Solutions at International SOS, commented, “Robust crisis management processes sit at the core of business resilience. Many organisations were unprepared for the global pandemic, shining a spotlight on limitations in crisis management preparedness. These limitations potentially put employees and assets at risk, while also creating operational continuity exposures.

“As we begin to move beyond the pandemic, organisations should learn from this disruption, and review existing crisis management guidance and modify their planned responses. This process should be supported by identifying trusted and reliable support services, accounted for at the initial planning stage and on hand to provide support at a moment’s notice.”

To help organisations address the issue of crisis management preparedness, International SOS has launched a Crisis Management Gap Analysis Solution. Delivered through its consultancy practice, the Analysis provides organisations with an impartial, expert-led analysis of their crisis management structures and processes that are currently in place, mapping current status with the ideal scenario.

The Gap Analysis Solution is able to solve the issues that many current review processes face with regards to impartiality and a failure to follow best practice. The objectivity that the Solution provides is vital in breaking down silos between business functions and providing a clear roadmap of improvements that organisations could implement.

The analysis is built by conducting technical evaluations, document analysis and review of existing processes by our security and health experts to enable organisations to:

• Build / rebuild corporate resilience: anticipation and mitigation of workforce risk exposure
• Reduce the impact of a crisis on business activities
• Support (crisis) leadership: empowering decision-makers with support and adapted techniques
• Demonstrate a commitment to Duty of Care

Case Study: Using its proprietary Crisis Management Gap Analysis, International SOS provided an objective assessment of a major telecommunication company’s crisis management performance to date. This was related both to COVID-19 and the organisation’s broader processes as a component of the overall Business Continuity Plan.

To listen to the case study and for more information on International SOS’ Crisis Management Gap Analysis, click here.