The only thing worse than bad news is bad news late

In an organization, issues arise. And to tackle these issues, they need to be identified on time. If not, the company runs into more issues and may lose money if not handled properly. The quote shows clearly how a problem can be worse than it already is if not detected early enough.

When involved in the decision - making process in a company, it is quite important to identify problem areas way ahead of time, to avoid a future occurrence. This is called risk management. 

Say a beverage company plans to change the look of their cans after realizing that results of a market survey showed that customers are tired of the old can design. If they went ahead to make the change to the design without informing the marketing team, that would lead to a bigger problem. The marketing team would go for sales drives with the old design in mind, and therefore the wrong sales pitch. And that would lead to more losses for the company.

It is important for individuals and teams to communicate issues clearly and on time, so that issues can be avoided.