“Resilience professionals transforming crisis management practices” reports BCI

This year’s 68-page research report shows that most organisations (ie 75.1% of those surveyed) have activated their crisis management plans during the last 12 months. This is the first time the report has gathered information about activation frequency and the high percentage clearly highlights the ongoing need for well-trained crisis management professionals across all sectors, the requirement for continual review and improvement of existing practices and the necessity of experienced and very well exercised crisis management teams that can rapidly and effectively respond to incidents.

Across the last year, a wide variety of threats have triggered crisis management responses. Extreme weather events top the list, with third party failures and cyber attacks taking joint second place. Other less frequent activation events include civil unrest, conflict, vandalism or activism and Health and Safety-related incidents.

This broad range of incidents indicates the need for a crisis management team with a diverse range of perspectives and plans and whose constituent members are adaptable and flexible enough to address the effects of events, whatever the cause.

Reflective practices

46.4% of organisations (the highest noted in this study) report conducting post-incident/’after action’ reviews, highlighting an elevated perception of the importance of reflective practice and the need for ensuring ‘lessons learned’ are incorporated into a continuing improvement strategy for crisis management practices.

However, senior leadership was significantly represented in only three-quarters of organisations: a worrying trend that indicates top management teams don’t allocate enough priority to reflective practices.

As was the case with last year’s report, quick mobilisation of the crisis management team, effective external communications and staff well-being are this year’s top priorities. However, concerns over inadequate training, such as a lack of awareness around crisis plans and failure to share such plans within the organisation, indicate that siloes persist. The implementation of management-level training shows that most organisations still have work to do in order to fashion a Best-in-Class crisis management team.

Encouragingly, staff well-being appears to be a rising priority with 87% of organisations deeming this to be a key requirement of the crisis management team. Despite this, one quarter of organisations state that they don’t change crisis team members enough, while 16.5% of respondents harbour concerns over the crisis management team’s risk of ‘burn out’.

Combination approach

This year, more organisations than ever (ie 84.7%) have expressed a preference for a crisis management structure that has some degree of centralisation, highlighting a move towards more streamlined problem solving as well as helping to break down the problematic siloes.

However, more organisations than ever before are now using a hybrid approach to bring together centralised strategies, with local teams handed the autonomy to action parts of the crisis management plan themselves.

Another change from last year is the increasing number of senior executives recognising the importance of delegated control. 52.9% now assume an oversight role, duly highlighting a growing recognition that managers may need to make rapid decisions without waiting for senior approval. 

Many organisations are moving away from physical crisis rooms in favour of virtual rooms that simplify efficiency, enable rapid response times and allow global participation. Mirroring the rise of virtual crisis management tools is the increasing use of enterprise software, messaging apps and virtual crisis room/dashboard technology.

The use of Artificial Intelligence is also rising, most notably so for data analysis and support, real-time monitoring and alerts and automated response protocols in a crisis management response.

Centrally co-ordinated teams

Rachael Elliott (knowledge strategist at the BCI) explained: “Given the sheer volume and variety of events over the past year, the fact that more than three-quarters of organisations have had to activate their crisis management team over the past year comes as little surprise. However, far more noteworthy is the changes organisations are making to their crisis management strategies in order to meet these new challenges.”

On that note, Elliott continued: “An increased preference for centrally co-ordinated crisis teams, the stepping-up of reflective practices to learn from mistakes made during crises and the increased investment in tools and technologies mean that organisations are becoming better-placed to deal with the expected and unexpected incidents that could confront them in 2025.”

Benjamin Jansen, senior vice-president of sales at F24, responded: “As the BCI’s report highlights, the complexity and frequency of crises in today’s world make resilience for companies more important than ever. Disruptions are triggering crisis responses with greater regularity. Sometimes even occurring simultaneously, crisis episodes require rapid and effective management. This is where technology can help and enable crisis teams to act faster, be more targeted and manage critical situations on a successful basis.”

*Download the BCI Crisis Management Report 2024