Crisis Preparation & Management
SEC Newgate’s team of crisis communication experts have the tools, expertise and experience to guide you through any crisis situation.
Whether it’s being prepared with a robust crisis plan, combating a cybersecurity threat, or providing proactive support during an actual crisis, we can help you make the right decisions and protect your reputation.
We know this space so well we’ve developed a best-in-class crisis support app to help you effectively manage your crisis communications, anytime and anywhere.
Crisis Communications App
SEC Newgate has applied our crisis expertise to develop a best-in-class crisis communications playbook which has been converted into a secure and easy-to-use app.
The SEC Newgate Australia Crisis Communications App is an ‘anywhere, anytime’ Crisis App to help you manage a crisis in real-time.
Available on phone, laptop and tablet, the app makes it easy to access crisis response plans, track live issues and deliver effective, timely and sensitive communications in a crisis.
Benefits
- Your crisis plan, in your hands, anytime and anywhere
- Real time information, plans and protocols that are regularly updated – and don’t just sit on your shelf
- 24/7 support and easy-to-access crisis management resources, even when offline
- Live issues can be managed and tracked in the App and key decision makers tasked with actions
- Latest security and data privacy technology
- Actions tracking and reporting
App clients can access SEC Newgate’s Crisis Communications Master Playbook, developed by our in-house team of crisis communications experts, for easy use in high pressure situations. Alternatively, we also work to convert your established communications plan into an actionable and effective crisis management tool.
The App is hosted on the ‘In Case of Crisis’ platform, an award-winning technology originally created to support the 2012 Olympics and used by over 1000 organisations around the world including Google and Qantas.
Crisis Response
Every organisation experiences some form of crisis or reputational issue but it is often an organisation’s immediate response that plays a large role in determining any impact to its reputation.
SEC Newgate provides a safe pair of hands to help organisations set up their crisis team and undertake measured assessments of the situation. We will support you to develop a strategy, manage key internal and external stakeholders and ensure effective and timely communications.
To help you minimise risk and ensure the right communication decisions are made in the early stages of a crisis, we draw on SEC Newgate Research’s rapid response approach to help determine awareness of an issue and sentiment.
This allows us to:
- Conduct high quality focus group and survey fieldwork within 24 – 48 hours (in most cases); and
- Quickly deliver reliable results, with the resources and materials already in place.
As part of this process, we often use the MessageLab tool, SEC Newgate Research’s proprietary approach to identifying:
- the messages that will be most effective in shifting opinion among different audiences;
- ·the delivery methods that will work with each audience; and
- how best to frame your overall response.
We can also help you rapidly assess the online environment in relation to your issue using our digital optics reports, which use the powerful mapping technique of social network analysis to provide insights about the key influencers involved in online conversations.
Understanding this critical information at the outset enables you to get the best response to the right people at the critical time
Crisis Planning
Crisis planning is the critical first step to preparing your organisation to deal with whatever challenges you’re faced with.
We regularly work with clients to develop, test, review and advise on crisis plans tailored to your organisation’s specific needs.
SEC Newgate will help you to identify and analyse potential threats to your business so that we can design a crisis plan that is practical, actionable and easily understood by all key staff who may need to implement it.
Key elements of a crisis plan include:
- Identifying roles, responsibilities and management strategies;
- Providing workshops to identify potential issues ahead of time; and
- Facilitating real-time simulation exercises to test your communications crisis plan in realistic scenarios.
In high pressure situations, having pre-prepared communication materials on hand that can quickly and easily be adapted and rolled out is invaluable.
SEC Newgate’s team of experts will work with you to develop a range of materials, including:
- Key messages
- Q&A
- Holding statements
- Internal communications
In addition to traditional stakeholder and communications activities, your digital response to a crisis is equally critical to ensuring your organisation can execute a timely and consistent communications response. SEC Newgate’s digital team will help you to fully integrate digital activities into your broader crisis communications strategy. We will work with you to:
- Ensure digital communications are integrated into broader crisis communications plans;
- Help you prepare messages for use on a range of platforms including social media, your corporate website and email communications;
- Oversee preparation of appropriate community management frameworks, including:
- Response protocols
- Escalation procedures
- Content approval processes that integrate with existing operating procedures.
Crisis Recovery
SEC Newgate has managed communications responses to some of the country’s most high-profile crises involving ASX-listed companies, local and international organisations and individuals.
The recovery from these crisis situations is often long and requires careful consideration and strategic planning.
Actions and communications need to be appropriate in order to have the greatest chance of securing a positive outcome and minimise further risk.
SEC Newgate can advise you on how to engage media, government, stakeholders, employees, affected communities and the general public to facilitate reputation repair and recovery.