“It Will Happen Again”: What SARS Taught Businesses About Crisis Management

In this article, the authors modified Mitroff and Pearson’s (1993) work on crisis management planning and offered further suggestions according to the lessons learned from the SARS outbreak.

They suggest that:

Infectious diseases like SARS affect small firms qualitatively and quantitatively more than large multinationals.
Factors such as production and assembly, sourcing of supplies, source of competitive advantage, quality and corruption and informational flows may contribute to the impact of a contagious disease on commerce.

Re-examine the amount of inventory your company has;
Increase the quantity of inventory to adjust for economic troubles to create a buffer for sudden crises although it will increase operating costs.

Consider source diversification to protect yourself against losing some parts or production sources;
Smaller companies can establish a second source for key parts/products;
Keep in mind that if your first source is from an Asian country, for example, the second source must be from another far global location like Europe.

You can move promising employees around different parts/sections/departments of your firm in order to acquire local expertise and exposure;
Train your workers for the role that they might play when a crisis happens.

Some firms do not “care about what happens to its workers, so long as production can continue”. However, workplace health issues are so important!

You have to care about your staff equally;
Be concerned about your employees’ physical and mental health and safety;
Work according to J.W. Marriott’s words: “if you take care of your people, they will take care of your customers, and profits will take care of themselves”;
Adopt the official government line regarding the effects of the epidemic and develop your own well‐conceived health policy.

Source

Day, B., McKay, R. B., Ishman, M., & Chung, E. (2004). It will happen again: What SARS taught businesses about crisis management. Management Decision, 42(7), 822-836. Retrieved from https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/00251740410550907/full/html

Share with us your thoughts and don’t forget to check out our course.

Follow us on social media

Stay Tuned!

NMK – Business Coaching and Communication