Institute for Crisis Management releases 35th Annual Crisis Report
Crisis news story statistics returned to pre-pandemic-like results. The Institute for Crisis Management® (ICM) tallied 1,134,388 crisis news stories in 2024, a decrease of about 43% over 2023 in a final retreat to pre-pandemic results.
The 2024 ICM Annual Crisis Report is a compilation of news, trends and highlights of business crises, offering business leaders valuable insight into the impact crises can have on the organization and its stakeholders. According to the report, news items about mismanagement reclaimed the top spot at 21.5%, followed by class actions at 17.9%, cybercrime at 13.3% and discrimination at 11.6%. At the bottom of the list were mass casualty accidents (0.48%), human-caused environmental damage ( 0.21%), executive dismissals (1.07%), and hostile takeovers (1.01%).
Smoldering crises have reclaimed their commanding lead at 75% of all stories tracked. A business problem or issue left unresolved by management often explodes into what we call a smoldering crisis, one that is both predictable and preventable.
“When looking at trends over the past six years, most categories seem to have returned to levels typical of 2015 to 2019, ” noted Deborah Hileman, ICM’s CEO. “ However, some categories prove unpredictable. Class action stories, which accounted for just over 1% of 2019 results, have skyrocketed to nearly 18% in 2024. Whistleblower stories, on the other hand, which were as high as 29% percent in 2022, have dropped to half their 2019 level at 4.3%.”
Hileman urges leaders to invest in comprehensive crisis management and communication planning and training to prepare, prevent and mitigate the kinds of crises that can adversely impact an organization’s reputation, brand, business and financial performance. “ The investment in preparedness is pennies compared to the cost of failure to manage crisis effectively,” she said.
