Deloitte’s handling of the issue can be evaluated as appropriate and effective since it was able to keep the breach secret of the attack, thus, avoiding reputational damage. The company did well in regards to avoiding adhering to collective crisis accommodative strategies and instead focused on non-expositional methods of containing the information. Deloitte only informed top and senior managers and immediately contacted the directly informed and affected clients, which minimized the possibility of reputational damage. Evidence suggests that “in a collective crisis, accommodative strategies result in more negative reputational damage and a higher burden of responsibility.”
In other words, when a company in crisis utilizes accommodative strategies by exposing itself to the public and being excessively transparent on the details of the problem, the reputational loss is higher than if it adhered to defensive methods with a limited form of communication. However, they could have done better by avoiding hiring external experts since it is a potential for information leaks, where instead, the company should have bolstered its internal security analysts team by expanding the given department in order to ensure future preparedness.