Crisis — the defining moment

Abstract

Every corporation is likely to face one or more major crises during its lifetime. A crisis or catastrophe is the crucible in which the resilience of the brand is tested, sometimes to destruction because not all survive the test. Among those that did not survive the test of a severe crisis is Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm that was destroyed by the Enron scandal. Enron itself came out of the affair as a mere shell of its former self. Two of the USA’s most famous airlines — PanAm and TWA — had prolonged declines and deaths that many experts trace back to the terrorist crises that each suffered and from which they were unable to recover.