Topic > However, customers are unpredictable and uncontrollable. Customers can positively or negatively influence the company's reputation and the company should ensure that customers are satisfied with the product or service offered. Business Risk, Business risk is the possibility that a financial institution will make lower-than-expected profits or earn rather a loss than a profit. The financial institution is unpredictable and, if not managed carefully, can result in a potential crisis that can lead to the collapse of the institutionCrisis Management PlanA crisis is any event that causes disruption of a company's operations or business function for a period beyond the acceptable limit of downtime. Management planning is a plan and responds to internal and external factors that pose a threat to a company as mentioned above. Therefore the organization should have strategic plans to ensure a smooth transition from the effects of the crisis to normality. Antonacopoulou & Sheaffer (2013) argued that the environment in which companies operate today is often described as hostile, aggressive, uncertain, dynamic and complex. Therefore, the complexity of business environments results in various different crisis events (Heller & Darling, 2012) . Therefore, it is very important for managers to focus not only on when and how the crisis might occur. To minimize such unexpected impact on organizations, reasonable crisis management practice is required. According to Smith (1992) the article reveals the seven Cs of crisis management which demonstrate or have demonstrated elements to prevent crisis. In other words, the Elements develop and discuss the five phases of the crisis management plan, but they have classified the phases into three classes. The five stages include; signal identification, preparation, prevention, damage control, recovery and learning (Antonacopoulou & Sheaffer, 2013). However, for better analysis and understanding, I have summarized the phases into three groups. This includes crisis management, the second category is called operational crisis team and the last category is called legitimation crisis. Crisis Management This division of people often comprises the first three phases of the crisis management plan. These are the signal identification, preparation and prevention phases. Therefore, the intent of this phase to create situations that pose a threat to an organization's survival places the organization under what is called extreme time pressure. Studies by Haller & Darling (2012) show that this phase represents the period in which a crisis is incubated and plays a crucial role in addressing the strategy and system level that results in problems at the functional and operational levels of the organization. However, this stage occurs when a management team fails to consider the imminent situation about to occur that may pose a threat to the survival of the business. The important aspect at this stage is effective communication, great cultural value and decision making and how they generate vulnerability. Failure of the management team to respond reasonably to incidents could lead to a potential crisis. This phase represents a crucial phase in which the decision adopted or not adopted by the company management can hinder the growth of the company culture (Herbane, 2014). The main issues addressed in this phase include the role management plays in creating errors, weaknesses in management structures, content decision-making and communication processes, and problems that arise from the interaction of the business environment. Therefore, the organization should understand thatany minor issue should be addressed carefully as it could lead to catastrophic failure in the organization. The organization should be able to identify signs that could lead to potential crises and the organization should be prepared to manage the problems and possibly find solutions strategies that can be adopted to prevent the crisis from developing further thus minimizing the effects posed by the crisis. Consequently, such problems will be reflected in failures of contingency plans that address the scope and scope of problems faced by the organization in the operational phase of any crisis. Operational Crisis The second category, called operational crisis, is the result of the escalation of a problem to the point where the damage has caused damage to the organization's reputation or has threatened the organization's reputation. This phase is characterized by human management in reducing the impacts faced by the organization due to the escalation of the crisis. This phase of the crisis management plan is by far the most visible and important as it indicates the damage already caused (R. Blevins, Lord & Bjerregaard, 2014). As a result, this phase requires additional resources to contain event intent demands, and ultimately return the business to normal operations. This phase is also characterized by the role played by external factors which in most cases act as rescuers who take short-term control of the harmful event until the situation is lowered to a more manageable level by the organization's management processes . In case events have resulted in complete loss of business, this is the stage where all evidence is gathered for further analysis. The operational crisis phase will often deal with damage control caused by the escalation of the crisis to the point of threatening or even damaging the company's image (Antonacopoulou & Sheaffer, 2013). Due to the nature of the threat and the causes of the effects, the crisis will often not end at this stage but may escalate further to the point of reputation building. As a result, the operational crisis phase will often address issues that are the result of harm occurring due to the escalation of a problem to a crisis. This escalation of the problem to the point of crisis therefore represents a threat or even damage to the company's reputation and image. Crisis legitimation The essential support of this phase will often address issues relating to management turnaround times, recovery of the company's reputation and various processes aimed at ensuring the company's validity with internal and external shareholders. This creates an opportunity for the management team to come up with strategies that can be used by the organization to address future crises that occur in the first phase of the crisis management plan. Furthermore, this phase is often characterized by organizational learning and therefore the development of strategies that can be used in the future to help curb any possible threat to the company's image (Antonacopoulou & Sheaffer, 2013). In this phase the company will try to restore the already damaged image towards its internal and external stakeholders. The company will take precautionary and preventative measures thereby restoring trust among its partners, customers and stakeholders. At this stage most companies will often use the recovery and learning process to identify the factors that led to the escalation of the crisis and come up with strategies that the management team can improve for future use. Furthermore, due to the reputation of the company already.
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