Great companies will use a crisis or a potential crisis as a spur to make the organisation better for its stakeholders and customers. The challenge internally should be to use the issue, driven by its values, as motivation to get so far ahead of the market that it will ultimately improve the business and the lives of customers.

It’s shocking that it took Pret two years following the event of Ednan-Laperouse’s death to send a letter to the family once they faced the deadline of the coroner’s inquest and growing media interest. The optics of seeing the CEO making a statement on the street were good, but with more cases coming to light, the decision making process of the business was shown to be far too slow.