Handled well, it can wash down into the soil, feed the roots and help a business grow. Mishandled, it can burn and leave permanent scars.
Contrast these two separate incidents involving world-renowned products.
In the fall of 1982, seven people died after taking Johnson and Johnson's Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules that had been laced with cyanide.
Guided by the company's credo that the focus of its company was its customers, CEO James Burke immediately alerted people to the dangers and recalled 31 million bottles of product, at a cost of $100 million.
The company told customers it would stop production until it could provide tamper-resistant caplets, and launched an investigation to find the culprits. The company also offered to exchange the millions of bottles of Tylenol capsules that had already been sold for Tylenol tablets.
Costly, but it saved the firm.
Though initially its market share fell from 35 per cent to eight, by the end of the year it had rebounded to 24 per cent.
The crisis allowed the company to show its commitment to safety and quality of its products, and gave other businesses a template for maintaining credibility and customer trust through a disaster.
However, Source Perrier did not use that template.
In 1989, Perrier was the leading imported water in North America, with about six per cent of the market in the U.S.
The "naturally sparkling" water comes from a mineral spring in the south of France.
In 1990 benzene, a poisonous liquid known to cause cancer in rats, was found in Perrier in the United States at four times the legal limit.
At first, Source Perrier said it was an isolated incident and reassured people the underground spring was pure and unpolluted.
An employee had cleaned some bottling equipment with a fluid containing benzene, and the problem had been dealt with.
The company recalled 70 million bottles from North America.
A few days later, it said the contamination was caused when employees failed to replace charcoal filters that screen out benzene, a chemical impurity in the natural gas in the water.
Then benzene was found in Perrier in Holland and Denmark.
The company changed its story again, saying benzene is naturally present in carbon dioxide, which was added to make the water fizz, and is normally filtered out before bottling.
A worldwide recall followed. Perrier's chairman said he did not want the least doubt to tarnish the product's image of quality and purity.
Then the U.S. Food and Drug Administration made Perrier drop the words "naturally sparkling" from labels, since the water was artificially carbonated.
By 1995, Perrier sales in the United States had fallen by half.
A decade after the incident, Perrier had not regained market share.