A crisis is defined as any situation that threatens a company's integrity or reputation, usually due to negative media attention. A crisis management plan outlines the steps to identify potential crises, prepare responses, and manage communications. It includes forming a crisis team to develop and test the plan. When a crisis occurs for Cadbury regarding insect contamination found in their chocolate bars, their crisis management team implemented an intensive communications program over six months to rebuild trust with stakeholders and restore sales that had dropped significantly.

2. What is Crisis?
A crisis is any situation that threatens the
integrity or reputation of your company,
usually brought on by adverse or negative
media attention.

3. A Crisis Situation
 On October 3, 2012, the Food
and Drug Administration
Commissioner received
complaints about infestation in
two bars of Cadbury Dairy Milk
 Resulting in adverse media
coverage touched close to 1000
clips in print and 120 on TV news
channels
 Company’s reputation and
credibility was under intense
scrutiny
 Sales volumes came down
drastically in the first 10 weeks
 Retailer stocking and display
dropped, employee morale was
shaken

4. Characteristics of Crisis
1. Unexpected
2. Creates
Uncertainty
3. Is seen as a threat
to important goals
4. Leads to a process
of transformation

5. Types of Crisis

6. What is Crisis Management?
Crisis management is the process by which
an organization deals with a major event that
threatens to harm the organization, its
stakeholders, or the general public.

8. About Crisis Management

9. Facts about Crisis
Management
 51% of the organizations do not have a crisis management plan in
place
 59% of organizations do not have written policies and procedures for
crisis management
According to The American Management Association’s Survey

10. Steps of Crisis Management
Crisis Team
Getting Started
Issue Identification
Policy Preparation
Preparing Specific Responses

11. Crisis Team
 Prepares plan and meets regularly to update and test it
 Responsible for identifying various scenarios that could
adversely affect the company
 Develop a model or plan to follow in each scenario.
 Prepare media statements, press releases, notification
lists and other materials that helps keep a crisis situation
under control
 Includes top management, operations personnel, public
relations experts, legal assistance, and insurance
carriers

12. Getting Started
 Crisis Management plan should be a part of an
overall safety and emergency preparedness plan
 It should be a standard part of an overall strategic
planning process
 It should deal with what the public thinks
happened i.e. the perception of the people

13. How to get started on
crisis Management Plan?
Predict
Position
Prevent
Plan
Persevere
Evaluate

14. Issue Identification
 This stage is an ongoing process
 The crisis team must identify every imaginable
issue and list them

15. Policy Preparation
 The response towards crisis
should be honest, timely and
direct.
 A prepared, approved and
distributed policy document helps
in handling media in a +ve way
and makes the company appear
cooperative and non-secretive
 Incorporating ethical standards into
the policy, keeping in mind the
interest of all the parties, is vital
 Correct, current and complete
information should be provided
about the crisis and the company

16. Preparing Specific Responses
 Defining the scope of the crisis: Local or
Regional, National or International
 Establishing a position statement for each
issue identified
 Establishing a unified response
 Crisis management team must be aware
about their roles individually and fully
prepared

17. Preparing Specific Responses
(Cont.)
Preparing for Media
 Understanding what Media wants
 Preparation of sample press release
 Keeping the message simple, clear, consistent, and customized to
each audience
 Anticipating media questions and establishing answers for each
situation and continuously updating the questions
 Media should be briefed about what’s happening continuously and
regularly
 Media calls must be answered quickly and completely
 A media log must be maintained

18. Post-Crisis Review
 Crisis Management is a continuous process
 Each crisis situation must be reviewed and
evaluated
 Studying the media coverage
 Understanding the company’s image post the crisis
 Short and long term programs to rebuild image
 Review the position statements for relevance and
necessary revisions
 Evaluation and effectiveness of the crisis
management team

19. How did Cadbury Manage
Crisis?
Key Challenge
Restore confidence in the key stakeholders
Build back credibility for the corporate brand
through the Media
Bring back the sales number

20. How did Cadbury Manage
Crisis? (Cont.)
Focused and intense
communications
program was
implemented over the
next six months to
rebuild credibility and
restore confidence
among the key
stakeholders

21. How did Cadbury Manage
Crisis? (Cont.)