Ruder Finn has launched RiskSTAT, an app-based, reputation management system that identifies potential risks in real time, predicts potential impact and facilitates a quick response so companies are not left flat-footed when a crisis hits.

RiskStat is meant to overcome the real-world limits of typical reputation risk management plans, which are often worthless when an organization is faced with a full-scale issue.

“We have seen an extraordinary series of high profile crisis situations in the past twelve months where, time after time, senior management were widely criticized for poor crisis management capabilities. Yet in many cases, these were organizations that likely had crisis management policies in place and were confident they had been tested,” said Charles Lankester, executive VP, global reputation & risk practice, Ruder Finn.

RiskSTAT customizes risk management protocols based on client needs, identifying obvious and non-obvious reputation risks with associated decision-making and response guidelines.  Using real-time sentiment analysis from the social and dark web, it helps clients identify issues at the earliest possible stage.

Customized protocols are integrated into a dedicated client smartphone App (iOS and Android) that allows users to produce real-time reports and send images, video and other relevant materials from the field to designated crisis team members.

Data-gathering from anywhere in an organization is possible with immediate situational review and decision-making by the central risk management team.

The system is cloud-based, with secure, end-to-end encryption.  Developments, decisions and communications are dynamically updated for the crisis team, removing the need for paper-based manuals.

RiskSTAT is part of a suite of tools being developed by Ruder Finn and RFI Studios, its digital marketing division.  

Last year, SONAR debuted, a social media crisis simulation training platform that allows participants to experience the dynamic environment of a fast-developing social media issue or crisis in real-time.