Last week’s devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and the continuing nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Dai-chi plant, are already starting to affect the global supply chain for various types of products. Early mass market news outlets covered the anticipated impact on the automotive industry. Trade news sources are beginning to cover other industries such as electronics. We are actively involved in planning to help one of our clients communicate about a major disruption in the supply chain for one of its big product lines due to radiation damage.

As events unfold, it may be too early to know how your products or supply chain may be affected, either directly as with our client or more indirectly because of the severe disruption of the world’s third largest economy. But when things become clearer, one thing is certain: you will want to do a complete job of communicating with your customers and markets. Even if there is no impact on your ability to supply your products, you’ll want to communicate that fact to reassure your customers during a time of high uncertainty.

Hopefully you have a crisis communications plan in place. Hopefully it is up-to-date in terms of the newer media and vehicles you can use to reach your audience, instantaneously. Hopefully you have an effective web presence you can use for this purpose, so that customers, press and other important audiences can quickly get information about to this topic without navigating your corporate or product-centric web site.

And hopefully you have the plans and resources in place to act quickly, so your customers and industries understand your situation. Nature abhors a vacuum (of information) but competitors and others love to fill it with misinformation. And today it is easier and faster than ever to publish misinformation and rumor…but that also means it is easier and faster than ever to publish factual, credible information. Your customers and markets will appreciate your diligence. Your reputation may depend on it.