When working with a new client, Castell Crisis Advisors recommend conducting a vulnerability and crisis risk audit at the outset.  This approach will provide an objective assessment of the organisation’s weaknesses, the risks that could threaten the company and its stakeholders, and the extent of the impact that possible crises could have.

A cross-discipline vulnerability audit allows Castell Crisis Advisors to quickly develop an understanding of your organisation, identify where risks exist in your operations that could cause of exacerbate a crisis, and determine how these vulnerabilities can be best addressed to strengthen the organisation’s crisis readiness.  The audit then provides a benchmark of your current crisis capabilities and a roadmap for improvement that will:

• determine possible areas of risk, analyse societal and industry trends and review events and situations faced by similar organisations;
• identify early warning signals of an impending crisis;
• detect and assess the potential loss or harm should specific existing situations escalate to crises;
• indicate remedial action to address significant threats;
• identify potential loss and harm that could be incurred should be identified potential crises occur;
• highlight and prioritise operational weaknesses that require strengthening;
• identify areas of improvement for crisis planning and training.

Depending on clients’ specific needs, the level of their organisations’ current preparedness and the type of industry threats to which they are exposed, Castell Crisis Advisors may recommend a comprehensive or a standard audit, both of which conclude with the findings presented in an evaluation report with recommendations for improvement.

A standard audit includes:

• a review of the organisation’s existing documents of crisis preparedness, such as emergency/incident response protocols and procedures, business continuity plans, disaster plans, crisis management and communication plans, feedback from past management and staff training;
• meetings with senior executives and members of the crisis management team.

A comprehensive audit additionally includes:

• visits to key operational sites to talk with managers and employees at all levels of the organisation;
• meetings with identified representatives of key external stakeholders, such as the local community, business associates, and other organisations with whom the organisation may be involved in times of crisis.

Reputation is a vital asset to every organisation.  Every organisation faces business issues that could affect the health of its reputation and image.  These can be specific to the company and its immediate environments, such as pricing policies or concerns about the safety of raw materials.  Some issues relate to a larger community or society as a whole, such as environmental concerns or cybersecurity.

The significance and importance of business issues change constantly as the business environment changes.  As companies do not have resources to address all current issues, they need to identify, assess, map and monitor potential risks so as to develop a strategic issue management plan of action.

A reputation risk assessment uses the same fact-finding approach as the crisis vulnerability risk audit, but with a specific focus on identifying and prioritising reputational threats from trends, incidents, events, and issues.  The resulting reputation risk landscape provides managers with a road map to reduce reputational risk before a crisis develops, by suggesting appropriate approaches to remove, reduce or manage identified threats.