MOST Malaysian companies have undertaken the “old school approach” to crisis management in the face of Covid-19 pandemic by reacting to a situation as it unfolds, instead of predicting the potential crisis that could arise, said a crisis management expert.

Stuart Rosman Tan, who has expertise in crisis management, said most firms fared well by quickly adapting to the Covid-19 standard operating procedures (SOP) and prioritising safety.

“However, there are many companies that thought it would be like SARS, MERS and even the Nipah virus, which would dissipate and see their life cycle run a short course and things would get back to normal,” Tan told The Malaysian Insight.

“Malaysian companies, as a whole, reacted well and reacted fast. But too many of them are still in this ‘reactive mode’. Riding the wave, waiting to comply with the next set of SOP and living in hope that the vaccination holds the key.

“What the big-to-medium-sized businesses and corporations are forgetting is that in crisis management, the term ‘reactive’ translates to ‘survival mode’.”

Tan, who is the managing director of Core Pro PR Services Sdn Bhd, said this is very much the old-school crisis methodology and philosophy.

He said just as the people have embraced the “new norms”, companies and businesses need to embrace the fact that crisis management, too, has “new norms”.

And the new norm for crisis management is “predictive evolution planning”, he said.

He said he has seen more than a dozen crisis management plans over the last 16 months, but none contained predictive evolution planning.

He said the plans he had seen were crafted around the five potential crises – assets damage, workplace accidents or fatalities, service or supply disruption, human resources and compliance issues.

“In all of these crisis management plans, they had ‘reaction measures’, a ‘Plan B’ and some form of ‘stakeholder/media communications’ pre-prepared and pre-drafted. That is a good start, but it is the old way of handling a crisis,” he said.

He said in today’s crisis management companies need to think 10 steps ahead. And that is where, he said, Malaysia’s big-to-medium-sized businesses and corporates are missing out.

“Not many are proactively trying to predict what is coming next and how this current crisis is going to evolve, which means they are not creating a Plan C, D or E, which they simply must do,” Tan said.

He said the old methodology of crisis management entails gathering as much information as possible when a crisis strikes and the chairman, chief executive officer or managing director will then decide the next course of action and the communication team will develop a narrative that will be disseminated to all platforms.

The new methodology, on the other hand, involves dedicating resources, including manpower, to predict what is coming next, how the crisis will evolve and the possible solutions that can be undertaken.

Tan said there is also another possibility for a crisis to evolve from the existing one.

“Companies should also take their reputation into account, as that will be based on their ability to deliver to customers without endangering their staff,” he said.

“There are plenty of reasonably priced tools online that can help you do all of that, so form an urgent task force to get a solution.

“Too many companies are ‘riding the wave’, hoping things will normalise quickly and be back to full capabilities soon. Their struggles point to their failure to incorporate ‘predictive evolution planning’ into their crisis plans.”

Too late for SMEs

Tan said it is too late for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to come up with a crisis management plan that is predictive as they were blind-sided by the speed of the pandemic and the Covid-19 containment counter-measures imposed.

He said most SMEs do not have a crisis management plan or it simply may not have crossed their minds that such a plan is necessary.

He said many are also of the view that only big players will need a crisis management plan.

“I would encourage every business and every company to have a crisis plan. It is basic business best practice and it is affordable,” Tan said.

He said businesses and industries that fail to recognise the need to update their antiquated crisis plans to include predictive evolution planning or be predictive, pre-emptive and proactive will be the most affected.

Adding that Covid-19 will not go away soon, he said businesses and companies should start revamping their crisis plans that span all of 2022 to be on the safe side.

During the first movement control order (MCO) in March last year, most economic sectors, except those in essential services, were not allowed to operate. As a result, more than 30,000 SMEs had folded.

The country is currently in a total lockdown for two weeks until June 14. Similar to the first MCO, only essential services and economic sectors are allowed to operate during this period. – June 4, 2021.