Yet it’s all too easy to get it wrong in a crisis. Even today, too many organisations fail to respond quickly enough or forget to put the needs of those affected before those of their business.

Hard-won reputations carefully crafted over many years can be lost in the space of one ill-conceived comment or unplanned interview.

And in today’s 24/7 media landscape with rolling news channels and social media networks, a company’s ‘licence to operate’ can be taken away in a matter of minutes.

Companies nowadays are not so much judged on the crises they face, but on how they handle them. Get it right and you can emerge stronger and with your reputation intact or even enhanced. Get it wrong and you can turn a crisis into a disaster.