When One Company’s Crisis Becomes Your Company’s Problem
By Mike McLean for PRNews
Even the biggest companies aren’t entirely self-sustaining. They require a network of vendors and partners to grow and maintain their everyday operations, and with an extended network comes an extended realm of risk.
Even with long-standing, trusted partners, you need to remember that their problems can become your own. In order to protect their reputations and businesses, founders and their communications teams must prepare for the right response when third-party risk becomes a firsthand problem.
A recent example of this third-party risk was the precipitous fall of Silicon Valley Bank, a trusted partner to many businesses, including startups. While the bank’s ultimate collapse was a result of many poor decisions, the extent of the damage and aftermath were, unfortunately, highly avoidable.
A series of communication errors led to reputational damage and financial losses not just for themselves, but for those that banked with them. The long-tail impact on the startup community was substantial; a recent report revealed that 84% of VC-backed startup founders were impacted by SVB’s collapse and 46% of those impacted immediately turned to a PR firm or professional for narrative control.
When SVB collapsed, we weren’t directly affected…
…but many of our customers and partners were. And it became clear they needed guidance on what to say to their stakeholders—as did we. My company, Embroker, provides tailored insurance packages for businesses. While outside of the traditional scope of an insurance policy, we wanted to make sure that our customers were empowered with the tools and information they needed.
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