Our latest media release relating to the collapse of Thomas Cook:
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| Photo: GETTY IMAGE |
It was incredibly sad to hear that the institution that is Thomas Cook, has collapsed. What are the lessons that can be learnt?
“We believe that there are three key things that all businesses can learn from this situation,” says Regine le Roux managing director of Reputation Matters, South African reputation research company.
1. Understanding your business and your industry: It is incredibly important to keep tabs on what is
happening in your business as well as the industry. Conducting regular research
will help you understand what is positively impacting the organisation. It will
also help you to identify gaps and risk areas which are crucial to the
sustainability of any organisation. If Thomas Cook had engaged in stakeholder
research on a regular basis, they would have been able to identify red flags
and put contingency plans in place to avert the threats. “We’ve conducted many
reputation research studies over the years. Different stakeholders are able to
give incredibly valuable insights into helping companies identify their blind
spots,” says le Roux. A key requirement of the King IV Report is the importance
of stakeholder relationships. Treasure your stakeholders and they will be
invaluable to your success.
2. Governance structures: Unfortunately, more often than not, it is a lack of governance
structures that lead to organisations collapsing. It is the leadership team’s
responsibility to ensure that stringent governance practices are followed and
that core ethical values are non-negotiable on all levels of the organisation.
3. Communication is key: Each crisis scenario unfortunately gives us a lot of
crisis communication content to use as case studies. There was an article that
appeared in Business Insider indicating that a Thomas Cook flight attendant
only found out about the company’s collapse via social media. Preparing for a
crisis is pivotal and a communication policy needs to be non-negotiable. It is
so important to let internal stakeholders know first and then have a strategy
in place to let all other external stakeholders know what is going on and
addressing all the key questions. Most importantly, one should not forget that you
are dealing with people and that you need to be empathetic during a
crisis.
Even though the company is closing its doors, those
executives will most likely go looking for future opportunities. The manner in
which they handle the crisis and the way that they communicate will have a
massive impact on their own reputations and whether or not people will want to
work, or be associated with them in the future.
Our heartfelt thoughts go to every single person
impacted by this very unfortunate situation.
If you would like your organisation to have a closer
relationship with your stakeholders, why not measure your reputation? Contact
us on research@reputationmatters.co.za or visit www.reputationmatters.co.za Twitter: @ReputationIsKey
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