Russ: This is the PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook. I’m Russ Capper, this week’s guest host, and I’m here with Chris Jones, Vice President at Pierpont Communications and he also leads their Energy and Crisis practices. Pierpont is also a contributor to the Profit and Peril Report. Welcome to the Playbook Chris.

Chris: Thanks Russ, I’m glad to be here.

Russ: You bet. So we’re talking about international business, that’s what Profit and Peril is all about; are there unique challenges to crisis management when a company expands internationally?

Chris: Certainly there are. One way to think about it, we kind of break it down a little bit, but I would start by thinking about what is within your control as a company – within your plan – your assets, your people, your policies, things like that. So something as high level as your company values may need to be revisited; those values may not translate into the new culture or market. They may not be appropriate or they to again be expanded upon. The vulnerabilities that your company faces, most crisis plans are sort of built around addressing those vulnerabilities, there are almost certainly going to be more of them or they will be different in this new market so you’ll want to revisit that.

Russ: Okay, it sounds to me like you might have seen somebody expand without having this pre-planning in place.

Chris: Certainly. I think one example that comes to mind is not being aware of some differences in the media in that region. So that in certain countries media expects you to be very proactive in reporting a crisis, in other cultures it’s more of a response to a crisis; you wait for the media to call and talk to them. So being aware of those differences is absolutely critical.

Russ: Very interesting, thanks for sharing your perspective with us.

Chris: Certainly.

Russ: You bet. For other international topics visit PKFTexas.com/internationaldesk. This has been another Thought Leader Production brought to you by PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook.