Ready for What's Next: Corporate Preparedness & Resilience in the Age of Permacrisis - FleishmanHillard

Article

May 23, 2025

By Vipan Gill

Crises are no longer episodic disruptions. Today, they form a continuous backdrop – an evolving dynamic that threatens organizational resilience and corporate reputation. Organizations that embed crisis preparedness as a core strategic capability – not simply an insurance policy – will be positioned not just to weather future challenges, but to lead through them.

That’s because risk today is faster, more complex and amplified across more dimensions than ever before. We are operating in a state of “permacrisis”. While crises are not necessarily new, it’s the speed, complexity, and amplification of risks across many different channels that have changed. Every organization faces compounding risks, whether they make headlines or not. Yet many companies remain underprepared. Insights from this month’s PRWeek Crisis Comms Conference 2025 revealed that nearly half of all companies still lack a formal crisis plan.

Readiness is Cultural, Not Just Tactical

In a world where every day feels like a crisis, many leaders mistake constant exposure for readiness. But resilience isn’t built in the moment. It’s embedded over time. Today’s risks demand deeper planning and perspective. Organizations must embed clarity of ownership, decision-making agility, and cross-functional coordination well before a disruption occurs.

At FleishmanHillard, this belief is core to how we guide clients. The conference reinforced what we see in our daily counsel; the absence of a crisis playbook isn’t the only risk. The bigger vulnerability is failing to operationalize crisis readiness as a living, evolving part of the business. In an era defined by disruption, resilience is the ultimate differentiator.

From Reactive to Resilient: Redefining Crisis Leadership

Historically, crisis management was shaped by high-profile, acute events. Today’s most damaging issues often simmer below the surface, emerging gradually, escalating quickly, and leaving little time for response.

World-class crisis outcomes now hinge on proactive, sustained investments in organizational preparedness, not just reactive action during a major event. Resilient brands do not just defend their reputation during crises; they proactively strengthen it through everyday actions.

To move from reactive to resilient, organizations need a modern readiness framework that embeds resilience into day-to-day operations. Core elements include:

Real-Time Risk Sensing: Implement tools to monitor traditional media, social platforms, fringe forums, and the dark web for emerging threats.

Reputation-First Scenario Planning: Develop scenarios that address both operational and reputational impacts, with predefined decision-making criteria.

Authentic Language Frameworks: Ensure communications reflect organizational values, particularly on sensitive or contentious topics to maintain credibility.

Strategic Spokesperson Planning: Prepare visible leaders who can act as credible, empathetic representatives under pressure.

Continuous Crisis Training: Treat readiness as a muscle to be exercised regularly, not a skill activated during emergencies alone.

In today’s attention economy, fringe narratives can move mainstream within hours. Resilient organizations sense what’s coming and shape the narrative before others do.

Proactive Narrative Management: Preparing for AI-driven Risk

AI is changing how reputations are shaped. Machine learning models, news algorithms, and social amplification systems serve as frontline interpreters of a brand’s behavior and its reputation. These systems don’t wait for formal updates, they ingest, index and amplify whatever narratives are most readily available.

That’s why prebunking– establishing credible narratives proactively–is essential. Organizations can no longer rely solely on reactive corrections during an active crisis. Instead, building trusted reputational foundations early on improves how audiences, and AI systems, interpret emerging narratives.

A strong crisis preparedness program ensures that communications strategies are not merely reactive after an incident, but active, strategic, and values-led well in advance.

Elevating the Role of Communications in Crisis Strategy

The role of communicators has evolved.  In a permacrisis environment, we are not just message managers, we are strategic stewards of corporate reputation—proactively guiding organizations through uncertainty, informed by data, technology, and human judgment.

While technology provides powerful tools, the true advantage lies in how organizations interpret those signals and act on them. Human insights remain essential. Context. Empathy. Judgement. These are the ingredients of trusted, decisive leadership in the moments that matter.

Our global crisis and issues management team combines real-world, local market experience with global reach—guiding clients through uncertainty across time zones, sectors and cultures. We help organizations build and operationalize readiness, so that when it matters most, you’re not reacting—you’re leading.