C7. Managing Crisis

          When things go wrong by our act?

                       When things go wrong by someone else act?

Crisis happens every now and then in business. It can be as small as computer being down or as big as loosing of whole data or biggest customer or anything else.

It can be internal or external

Internal which is created by our acts

External which is beyond control say foreign exchange, revised laws?

External can sometime be regional or global even like or epidemic like sars or flu or Tsunami or disaster like financial meltdown in 2009 of major world economics?

Crisis can be predictable or non predictable.

Some examples of crisis can be:

1. How to handle a media who just publish your bad angle and not covers your good angles as many media need just juicy stories for their reader. It’s their business. This is why you see more of theft or death or in news than good deeds of people especially when you are small and new.

2. We have seen a situation –that oil spilled in nearby sea and media published the report sea is not safe. It’s done with good intentions but business comes to standstill... What to do then?

3. What if a person dies of heart attack in a room or and found dead. Media just publish it without any fact while authorities are still investigating. How much the business is hurt? Can they even think? Worse they never wish to publish later that it was heart attack. They just print –a man died –so n so in ABC Hotel.

4. what if a person who checks in a room, how a hotel knows is she his girlfriend or a hooker. Neither they are supposed to know nor do they have means to know. But if it is caught-it becomes a big issue for image of hotel. Strange thing is –news will come- a person was found with hooker in ABC Hotel. Great to see that name and face of person is not published but picture of hotel may be published.

5 How about if hotel rooms have been booked, hotel can never know is it good person or bad person. They have no means to find what they do inside their room. How can they know if guest are cutting a cake or cutting a bet. But media is so alert that they can find the pictures sometimes even before us. I think police officers shall be trained under them that how to reach on spot before crime happens even.

6. I have been doing business in Sim lim square which has about 350 computer shops. Out of them 330+ has seldom any issue with customers and they do honest business. Only a handful of about 10+ are problematic shops which at times use wrong practices to get business or customer disputes.

Building management is helpless as they have no power to stop it,

Landlord cannot do anything as its tenant business,

Police cannot do anything as it is civil case

CASE cannot do anything as tourist is involved

STB can’t do anything except referring to small claim court.

Worst of it as soon as any issue happens-media publish an article that in simlim square some one got cheated. Most of time they won’t publish name of shop but put picture of building that too multiple times in name referring

Sim Lim Square

.

What is fault of those innocent and honest 330+ traders who are being punished for no good reason?

So how to Manage these crisis?

When crisis happens, most of us get excited or rather over excited and keep doing as much as we can do. In that process we lost presence of mind at times and end up doing whatever any one says.

Crisis can be solved only by presence of mind or common sense only. Since there is no set process or book or procedure to handle crisis, solution lies in minimizing the damage.