Are You Crisis Ready?

Recognizing a potential crisis as early as possible is key to mitigating its impact. What would you do in the following scenarios?

Scenario 1: Workplace issue or is it more than that?

Around 9:30 a.m., a young man enters the XYZ Company and finds the reception desk. He asks for his wife. The reception desk calls her but there is no answer. They inform him that she might be away from her desk. They asked him if he would like to leave her a message.The man seems very agitated and becomes angry. They suggest that he call her cellphone and leave a message. “I have called her cellphone and I have left messages.I am concerned and that is why I came here. Why can’t you help me?”

He pleads with them to find out where she is. He tells them that they had an argument and he feels terrible. He only wants to apologize and see how she is. Reception calls a colleague of the young man’s wife and learns that she is offsite at a meeting and will return later in the afternoon.

An employee passing by, notices what he thinks is a gun protruding from the young man’s back pocket.

Question: What would you do?

Scenario 2: Office disruption or is it more than that?

Employees come to work at the ABC Company only to find that they cannot connect to the network and they cannot retrieve email. A short time later, their systems are completely down. They think this is due to a power outage in the area as there is a serious thunderstorm.

About 30 minutes later, it appears that network issues have been resolved and employees receive a message that they can click a link to return to their email.

When they do, they are redirected to a site and unknowingly trigger malware that infects the network, unleashing a Cyber breach impacting the personal information of more than 1,000 employees and results in ransom demands of Bitcoin equivalent to $500,000. If the demand is not met within 6 hours, the information will be sold on the dark web.

On top of the ransom demands, you have 1,000 employees locked out of their computers unable to work. Your business has ground to a halt.

Question: What would you do?

Scenario 3: (Pharma/Bio Pharma): A Clinical Trial Goes Terribly Wrong?

About 10:30 am, QRX Biopharma receives a call from the Pharmacovigilance group at BAR Research regarding a patient death in the early stage clinical trial of BB2, a therapy, largely perceived as a breakthrough and the first in the company’s pipeline.

A short time later, the Company learns that this is not an isolated event nor is it confined to one trial site. Two patients at another clinical trial site are in intensive care.

The company had completed an IPO several months earlier.

Question: What would you do?

Scenario 4: Is it The Flu or Could it be More?

STW Company executives were assembled in a conference room reviewing plans to acquire a new company in China that would significantly expand their footprint in the highly desirable Asian market.

They were very pleased with the information being presented by three employees who had returned 10 days ago from preliminary negotiations with the company and they knew they had to move quickly as there was stiff competition and final bids were due within a week.

One of the presenters was clearly not feeling well and apologized at not being able to continue; handing off his part of the presentation to his colleagues. He mentioned that he had just gotten his flu shot yesterday and is probably experiencing an adverse reaction.

One of the executives casually remarked … “Thank god you guys returned from Beijing and not that city where they have that virus.”

Question: What would you do?