Six categories of scenarios that organisations experience that can lead to a crisis resulting in negative publicity, loss of confidence, investigations by regulators, questions from stakeholders, drop in share price, internal investigations, additional filings and communications with regulators.

A number of specific scenarios and indicators of risk that could give rise to a crisis related to 1) Financial reporting fraud schemes, 2) Money laundering, sanctions, terrorist financing, 3) Asset misappropriation, 4) Bribery and corruption, 5) Non-financial issues/discrepancies, and 6) cyber incidences.

A crisis that is localised is far easier to contain than one that has regional or global implications. Regional and global incidents require a far more coordinated and sophisticated response plan, both within the organization and between advisors, and must be actioned on a timely and professional basis.

KPMG assisted a Europe based retailer that procured fashion apparel in Asia. Just before the company’s Annual General Meeting, an NGO publicly “named and shamed” the company for collaborating with a business partner that allowed low occupational health and safety standards. KPMG assembled a response team, including suitable external legal counsel and a public relations firm, to quickly plan and have some people attend on site to ascertain the facts and allow the company to understand, from independent professional advisors, the issues, cause and effect and mitigation measures, and then to provide the public with an appropriate response.