Urgency of the Crisis Scenarios - Toyota - Assignment Example

Student’s Name Professor’s Name Course Name Date Crisis Management Analysis Question 1 (a); Urgency of the Crisis Scenarios For the first scenario involving faulty accelerators of Toyota vehicle brand, the level of urgency is immediate. It is important to note that is kind of crisis threatens directly the underlying public safety for the brand owners and others in highways throughout the world. Considering the fact that the company offers its Toyota brand vehicles to so many countries across the globe and the failure of these accelerators might result to intense danger, it is only safe to postulate that the threat is immediate urgency and an immediate response should be set up. For the second scenario, which involves sandwich owner offering free sandwiches, the level of urgency is immediate gradual. The owner has sometime to try and rectify the situation by way of formulating and informing the public about the initial objective of the campaign. The owner is able to alert the members of the public that the campaign was only meant for people within a given Facebook close group hence would need to confirm their membership prior to benefitting from these free sandwiches. b) How Serious Would the Crises Be? For the first scenario involving faulty accelerators of Toyota vehicle brand, the crisis is certainly able to result to a public safety issue. The lives of people across the world using highways that include pedestrians, cyclists are at stake. This is because faulty accelerators are prone to accidents that might result to death and other serious injuries and harm. It is important that the response be also made instant through a wider communication platform like the website forums and international media agencies. For the second scenario, which involves sandwich owner offering free sandwiches, the crisis is only likely to result to financial loss of the shop. This is ascertained to the fact that more than the planned number of people will visit the shop for free sandwiches thereby overstretching the current level of raw materials, which might prompt the owner to extrapolate their budget hence resulting to overconsumption of resources previously set of the campaign. The response should also be immediate but not that urgent since there is still time to rectify the anomaly. c) What would happen if the organisation did not respond? If the organisation failed to respond for the first scenario involving faulty accelerators of Toyota vehicle brand, then public safety is indeed at stake, which would result to loss of so many lives across the globe as a result of accidents. In turn, this will likely cause a reputational loss as most potential customers would now refrain from buying not only the Toyota model that has been affected but also others produced by the company. Consequently, the reluctance of the customers to purchase Toyota-branded products would then result to a financial loss since the firm’s current and future operations depend on the sale of the vehicle units. Failure to respond to the second scenario, which involves sandwich owner offering free sandwiches, would basically result to financial loss since the owner will be compelled to overstretch his/her budget in order to accommodate even the unplanned number of customers. In the event that the owner fails to respond quickly to inform the public about the main objective of the campaign being to serve a selected few, potential customers who are then refused free products will feel neglected and unappreciated hence this will result to reputational loss, which will affect the brand image of the sandwich shop for years to come. In fact, there is a possibility of potential customers overlooking the shop on the pretence that it is discriminatory in its dealings. d) What effects would it have e.g. on people, the organisation and/or the Environment? The effect of the first scenario involving faulty accelerators is directly linked to more death on people while the organisation will suffer from negative reputational image from both existing customers and other stakeholders like government agencies that is responsible for quality checks and controls. In the future, Toyota might not able to secure permits to operate in specific regions if their response is weak or absent. The faulty accelerators will also likely result to more noise and air pollution, which will expose the organisation to even intense scrutiny amongst the many non-governmental organisations dealing with climate change and protection. The effect of the scenario involving free sandwiches on people will be psychological in nature so that they might feel that the establishment is only discriminatory in its overall dealings. This will paint a very negative picture of the organisation to the public hence there is a possibility that most people will shun from dealing with it either directly or indirectly. e) How can we correct this problem? The first scenario involving faulty accelerators can be corrected through offering compensation and apologies to the already affected families. The firm should be able to explain that the fault was accidental in nature hence there was little or no control over what would happen as most of the vehicles had already been sold across the globe. Certainly, it can also adopt a remainder approach whereby Toyota senior-most managers will remind customers, being the largest stakeholder group from which revenues are sourced, of the previous efforts made by the company in bring about even more quality and friendly vehicles on the road. The approach will seek to ease affected customer’s perspective towards the company and engage with it in the future. For the second scenario involving free sandwiches, the owner should focus on adopting a ‘good-intention’ strategy that will focus on informing potential customers and the public at large that the shop was only meaning to do well with its initial campaign strategy. This will result to ease the standings of potential customers regarding the shop hence will probably overlook the miscommunication and engage it in the future. The shop owner can also adopt a justification strategy where the owner would explain the rationale behind the campaign in the first place. F) How Can We Prevent This From Re-Occurring? For the first scenario involving faulty accelerators, the best way to ensure that there will be no re-occurrence of a similar crisis is through making sure that in the course of its production process, public safety should be prioritised. It should also involve providing relevant stakeholders with updated recovery efforts and corrective measures for purposes of ensuring that their perspectives towards the company does not change hence protect its overall image in the process. For the first second scenario involving free sandwiches, the best way of ensuring that there will be no re-occurrence in the future is through analysing and evaluating the management for lessons and also, checking that all facts put forward related to such an event are correct prior to releasing to the public domain. Question 2 To effectively ascertain that a group of relevant employees have understood crisis management plan in place, then an active listening approach should be adopted. It is important to note that an active listening skill is a form of communication that calls for the listener to replicate what they have heard thus far to the speaker as opposed to just engaging in a hearing exercise. I will ensure that in adopting this technique the listener is able to feedback like ‘yes’ , ‘I see’, which would be a suggestion that the really comprehend what I would be conveying at that particular moment in time. Immediately after I am finished with providing pertinent information related to the crisis management plan, I would require that the employees re-word whatever I said in their own words for purposes of avoiding possible confusion and hence ensuring that there is total misunderstanding that can be corrected in a much quicker way. I will pose different forms of questions in order to ascertain whether there was any particular level of listening. For instance, I will pose the question; ‘did you get all that I was saying’ to the employees to make sure that all I had conveyed has been well received and understood for that matter. In the event that the employees engaged in the discussion did not understand anything, then I will focus on them informing specific bits that they did not comprehend at all. In case they say they understood the detailed information within the crisis management plan, I will go ahead and ask them to elaborate on what I said while still asking them specific questions in relation to what was conveyed during the meeting. I will also ask them to formulate the steps that they would take in tackling a specific task within the crisis management to determine their level of comprehension altogether. Read More