CISCO

1. Identify several examples of "crises" for CISCO, which occurred in recent years. Were they Preventable, Strategic, or External risks? External risks are the risks that cannot be controllable and are produced by non-human sources. For instance, COVID-19 pandemic is facing the world (Carroll & Brown & Buchholtz, 2018). It is an external risk facing Cisco company that is beyond management control. This COVID-19 crisis has posed a significant challenge to the company in sales and the reduced revenues over a few months. In the latest financial results, Cisco company announced a loss of over $1.4 Billion for the last few months of the pandemic. The losses came mostly from Cisco Company closed shops and premises around the world. The revenue dropped more than 50 percent. This is an external risk because this virus spares no one, and there was nothing Cisco company could have done to avoid this disaster. In the past years, the Cisco company was accused of "whitewashing," "racist," and "cultural stereotype" multiple times (Carroll & Brown & Buchholtz, 2018). Those are an example of Preventable risks which Cisco company could have chosen to avoid. 2. Using one of those "crises," briefly explain it in terms of the Four Crisis Stages. For this question, the coronavirus crisis will be examined. Prodromal Crisis Stage: This is also known as the pre-crisis stage, where there were news and expert warnings about a possible epidemic of a new Virus from China (Carroll & Brown & Buchholtz, 2018). At this stage, the Cisco company's leadership and management started to think about the potential impacts on different business aspects, such as operations, human resources, measurement plans, and legal requirements. Acute Crisis Stage: This is where the crisis occurs. Because the pandemic was an unavoidable external risk, this stage arrives as a matter of time. They had no other choice for the Cisco company but to shut down all of its merchandise stores, shops, and premises. They also had to lay off thousands of employees who were working for those facilities. Crisis Resolution Stage: The crisis continues in this stage, which tends to be the longest stage of the four. At this stage, Cisco company continued to deal with the situation where many things happening at the same time: their business struggled to re-open, media announced its financial losses, employees raised a petition in regards to their benefits, its stock price dived a slump, and the government released new restrictions. In reality, it could be said that the Cisco company and many other companies are still lingering at this stage. Crisis Resolution Stage: This is the final stage of a crisis. Cisco company is trying to reach this stage as soon as possible (Carroll & Brown & Buchholtz, 2018). Being an international company with operations spread across the world, Disney has reopened many of its businesses and announced the re-opening schedules for many more. They still need to comply with the government’s requirements regarding this on-going COVID-19 situation. 3. Do you believe your firm used any of the Five Practical Steps in Managing Crises? The Five Practical Step consists of identifying vulnerability areas, creating a strategy for handling the risks, forming a crisis team, simulation of crisis drills, and learning from experience (Carroll & Brown & Buchholtz, 2018). I believe the Cisco company has attempted mostly the first three steps. In my opinion, for the fourth step, the pandemic came too fast and spread too rapidly for any company to run a similar crisis drill. The massive loss of over $1.4 billion in a few months could be any evidence for that matter. Lastly, because the pandemic is not over yet, the Cisco company cannot thoroughly learn from the experience. At best, the company is learning on the fly. 4. Which of the major stages in the issue management process do you think is the most important? The issue management process model has six primary stages: Identification of Issues, Analysis of Issues, Ranking or Prioritization of Issues, Formulation of Issue Responses, Implementation of Issue Responses, Evaluation, Monitoring, and Control of Results (Carroll & Brown & Buchholtz, 2018). Generally speaking, I believe the most critical stage is the first stage, which identifies issues. To illustrate, if the company failed to have a clear picture of the problem, that issue could quickly turn into a crisis. More importantly, to resolve the case, the company must first successfully identify it. Otherwise, none of the other stages can occur.