Issue Management

Managing issues that may impact the business

For 25+ years, Luigi Norsa & Associati has guided public and private organizations through expert complex crisis and issue management services.

What We Do

Identify and manage issues before they turn into crises

An issue can be defined as the gap between a company’s activities and behaviors and the expectations or demands of its stakeholders or interlocutors.

When this gap is not identified and managed promptly, it can significantly affect business outcomes, leading to loss of competitiveness, increased costs, erosion of market share, and deterioration of the company’s and management’s reputation. In many cases, reactive issue management also consumes strategic time and resources, limiting management’s ability to focus on growth and organizational governance.

Conversely, proactive issue management allows external demands to be transformed into opportunities: bridging the gap between the company and its stakeholders can improve profitability, strengthen market trust, optimize costs, and support alignment with corporate strategies.

The concept of Issue Management arises precisely from the need to anticipate critical issues before they evolve into crises.

We support organizations in developing structured Issue Management programs, managing stakeholders, public affairs, and risk communication, including in sensitive areas such as consumer safety, environmental issues, and complex regulatory contexts.

Luigi Norsa & Associati - Issue and Crisis Management Consultant - Milano - Italia - Milan - Italy

Where others see crisis, we build growth

Identify and manage issues before they turn into crises

An issue can be defined as the gap between a company’s activities and behaviors and the expectations or demands of its stakeholders or interlocutors.

The concept of Issue Management arises precisely from the need to anticipate critical issues before they evolve into crises.

Identify and manage issues before they turn into crises

An issue can be defined as the gap between a company’s activities and behaviors and the expectations or demands of its stakeholders or interlocutors.

The concept of Issue Management arises precisely from the need to anticipate critical issues before they evolve into crises.

Issue Management Planning

A systematic approach to issue management implies five distinct steps:

1. Identification of strategic issues
This involves an analysis of social, political, economic and technological trends together with a survey of issues raised by groups of activists and experts of business areas crucial to the company. The results of this analysis are then compared with the company’s basic objectives and strategic policy, so that congruent and divergent areas can be highlighted. It is then possible to identify the primary issues that may affect the company’s business performance.

2. Issue analysis and assessment
This involves an analysis of the formal or informal positions taken by the various stakeholders as far as the issue is concerned. It provides a clear-cut ally/enemy picture and an analysis of possible developments (in terms of output, timing and critical steps). This assessment is carried out referring to benchmarking from past issues and by predicting the positioning of key figures.

3. Definition of strategic options- Strategic positioning
This involves the definition of the company’s basic approach to the issue: taking the lead in dealing with it or letting others develop it, adopting a proactive or reactive attitude, conforming with initial expectations or realigning them. Thus the company’s position with respect to the issue in question is identified.

4. Development of the issue management plan and program implementation
This means defining aims, objectives, strategies and methods, and then organizing the resources necessary to achieve the objectives agreed on. The programme’s success depends on the synchronization of the whole organization through common objectives and strategies, and the careful implementation of all the steps required by the programme, while continuing with precise monitoring of the evolving situation and the reactions of the different stakeholders.

5. Final assessment
Issue management aims at implementing a critical change. It is a dynamic process that requires constant assessment of results obtained in terms of modifications and synergies achieved and the state of evolving relationships.

Stakeholders Management

People, groups or organizations can influence, be affected in their interests by an issue or feel to may be. Effective Stakeholder Management program creates positive relationships with stakeholders through the appropriate management of their expectations and shared objectives.

The stakeholder management is a control process to be planned and implemented on the basis of a strategy that starts from the identification and definition of their potential influence and interests to develop targeted communication activities to inform, persuade and to direct behaviors related to the issue.

Luigi Norsa & Associati can assist companies in identifying stakeholders, assigning management priorities, in establishing and maintaining appropriate relationships and manage the expectations and perceptions.

Public Affairs

An issue can affect the behavior of customers, consumers, citizens, but also generate regulations which may entail more obligations and/or costs to the company and hinder the achievement of business objectives. Intervene, through lobbying, when those laws are already in the process of approval is complex, costly and of uncertain efficacy. It is much better and easier to intervene at an early stage, before the legislation took the form.

Laws, regulations, standards take shape on the basis of their political value perceived by decision-makers and interests expressed. Identifying potential allies and mobilizing them to express towards policy makers their support to a favorable regulation orients the political decision-making process before you have to try to rectify its practical implications.

Luigi Norsa & Associati can assist companies to identify potential allies, to form a constituency on the issue and to motivate it to publicly express their support for a regulation which is favorable to the interests of the corporation through a structured process of analysis and planning of the necessary actions.

Risk Communication

Understanding the mechanisms of risks perception allows an assessment of how risk is perceived, what could be the public response, identifying what are the variables to work on to facilitate the acceptance (or, to stimulate an awareness when our objective is to motivate to action towards a “real” risk).the development of the consequent communication strategies.

Communicate concerning a risk, real or perceived, cannot be based solely on objective and rational data, it must consider the factor of emotional perceptions and requires first to achieve the trust of our stakeholders, share public concerns, show commitment to tackle and manage the problem.

Risk communication must, first, be an interactive process of exchange, that should not limit itself to being merely an informative activity but should involve also opinions and values not only the facts. It cannot only deal with the rational and technical- scientific side of the risk, but must also deal with the emotional reaction of the audiences.

It’s a process that cannot simply spread a “correct information” about the risk, but have to create a relationship of trust and a dialogue between those who must manage the risk and those who feel exposed.

Luigi Norsa & Associati can assist organizations to build a risk communication process that engages the audience, make it part of the risk management process, let them accept the situation and share the actions taken to manage that risk.