Crisis, risk & reputation

In times of crisis, experience is everything. 

How companies and organizations manage communications around disruptive incidents and issues can make or break stakeholder trust in your brand.  

Failure to prepare and be ready to respond to any possible contingency can derail even the most successful operation, resulting in loss of market share, exodus of employees, and weakening of investor confidence.  

Leidar helps corporate and NGO clients across the globe withstand reputational challenges and threats to brand trust. Our Crisis, Risk and Reputation Practice is a combination of seasoned international practitioners and veterans of LEVICK Strategic Communications – one of the most renowned Washington, DC-based crisis communications agencies in the world. 

We’ve helped clients navigate the most challenging situations.

Leidar offers consulting and implementation across all phases of crisis communications: Risk assessment, Readiness planning, Crisis response management, and Reputation recovery. 

Risk assessment 

An effective response plan begins with a detailed risk audit and assessment, using extensive intelligence, and AI-gathering capacity to collect insights into current and potential challenges on the horizon. This early-stage consultation and extensive intelligence-gathering offers the opportunity to collect insights into current and potential challenges and build out potential risk scenarios.  

We leverage industry-leading technology to provide real-time business, geopolitical, and industry information to identify patterns and contextualize trends to help our clients identify issues at the earliest possible stage. From this insight, we can map out all potential risk situations related to your organization and rank them according to probability of occurrence and potential level of impact.

Readiness planning

Leidar designs organization-wide crisis communications plans that are actionable and flexible enough to adapt to a variety of situations. Our plans prepare clients to organize and manage their responses in an orderly and efficient manner, ensuring all the key players are ready to step into their roles and follow a disciplined protocol. 

Our readiness planning model is highly interactive and scalable. We set up processes and systems to ensure quick activation during any active situation. This encompasses several stages including triage, escalation, command and control protocols, communications assets, and training and testing of the plan. 

If desired, our plans can be integrated into a dedicated client smartphone app that allows users to securely share information among the crisis response teams with user-friendly checklists and pre-approved communications assets. The app allows clients to manage emerging threats and incidents efficiently even if the key players are dispersed around the globe. 

Once the plan is finalized, we develop tabletop exercises and simulation training to ensure everyone within your organization is aware of their role and coached on how to use the plan effectively. 

Response management

From the outset of an engagement, we are on-call to help manage any issue, big or small. We encourage our clients to involve us early to prevent a minor incident or simmering issue from evolving into a worst-case scenario.   

When these events occur, we are on the ground quickly, partnering with internal and outside legal counsel, forensic counsel, investor relations, and PR/marketing to formulate a tailored strategy to respond to and manage the event. We are hands-on and fully engaged to help with strategy, messaging, and communications with all relevant audiences, including the media, employees, investors, business partners, vendors, and policymakers.  

Leidar utilizes a suite of social listening tools to monitor the public discussion, in both social and traditional media to remain abreast of dynamic situations and respond appropriately.  

The common goal is to mitigate damage to your reputation and brand by controlling the narrative, countering misinformation, and keeping media coverage as balanced as possible. As the intensity wans and operations are restored to normal, we help our clients pivot from active response to long-term reputation management.  

Reputation recovery

In the aftermath of a reputational incident, consistent strategic communication and outreach are essential. Leidar engages with post-incident clients for as long as needed to ensure their brands fully recover and to help build a foundation for the future.  

The pivot from responsive communications that protect the brand and corporate reputation towards more proactive communications to build and promote the brand will depend on the circumstances. Senior leadership and members of the response team will determine when the pressure for immediate communications response to new developments has eased and to normal operations have resumed.  

At this point, communications teams must be cognizant of lingering negative stakeholder perceptions and opinions that may have formed about the brand and the company during the immediate response. While the business may be back to routine production and operations, restoring full trust and confidence in the company across all stakeholders – including employees, customers, communities, and regulators – may require additional time and effort.