Crisis Management for Small Business

As Canada’s Maple Leaf Foods makes its way through managing a food safety crisis, all business owners should give thought to their business’ crisis management plan. Crisis management can be defined as “a business plan of action that is implemented quickly when a negative situation occurs” (From “Crisis Management" in Encyclopedia of Small Business in enote.com). This “negative situation” could take many forms: natural disasters, embezzlement, product defects/recalls, workplace accidents/sabotage, computer viruses, etc. According to Gartner Group and quoted in the Canadian Federation of Independent Business’ document called “Basic Emergency Management Guidelines”, “43% of businesses that experience a major crisis never reopen”, and “a further 20% close within 2 years”. Good planning could help you minimize the negative impacts of a crisis.

Small Business Crisis Management

The Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness (CCEP) devotes a page to small business preparedness, including links to small business disaster management resources. The website includes free templates for downloading, like a business continuity plan and a crisis communications plan. Additionally, the CCEP produces a quarterly publication called Disaster Management Canada; back issues are available on the site in pdf format.

The British website, Business Link, which offers “practical advice for business” also offers a downloadable guide to business continuity management and a guide to developing a business continuity plan.

You can find even find background information on crisis management including models and theories, success stories, lessons learned and a variety of references, further reading and external links worth exploring on Wikipedia's crisis management page.

For further reading, don’t forget to visit your local public library to check out business planning and crisis management materials for free. A search of the term “crisis management” on the Oakville Public Library’s catalogue reveals several titles worth exploring, like one written by Ian Mitroff, a leader in business crises writing, called “Why Some Companies Emerge Stronger and Better from a Crisis: 7 Essential Lessons for Surviving Disaster”.