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How Communication is Key to the Success of a Critical Event Management Plan

The discussion around the value of Critical Event Management for any organisation as well as the basics steps to take to put in place a successful critical event management plan and how that can be applied in situations like the global crisis we are facing now is of the utmost importance.

Tom Pressley – VP International Marketing – Everbridge

OpenGov had the opportunity to speak with Tom Pressley – Vice President International Marketing, Everbridge.

Everbridge’s mission is to keep people safe and help organisations avoid, reduce the impact of, and recover from disruption to operations when a critical event occurs.

The interaction focused on how current events such as COVID-19 or even the Australian bushfires have made Critical Event Management a priority for leadership in Governments and Businesses today.

Critical Event Management is an essential tool for future planning and business continuity but what is equally important is how that planning is communicated internally.

Research shows gaps in Communication in Critical Event Management

Everbridge recently conducted a survey of 9003 employees across 13 markets to explore how current trends and habits of communication can impact the success of a Critical Event Management (CEM) plan: What kind of communication is in place today from employers and governments? What are the preferred methods for communication? What is the level of trust and reliability for each of these channels? How best to implement and improve an organisation’s CEM plan?

Improving Communication to Successfully execute Critical Event Management plans

Most of the current industry research focuses on how these plans have been implemented and activated.

Everbridge recognised there was a gap and a need to understand how organisations could improve communications further to accelerate business recovery efforts. They wanted to explore the perception of the employees, use their insights to create a holistic picture of how the industry could improve, especially after the volatility of the past year.

Through this research, they found five prevalent themes: Employees are more disparate and diverse than ever. Targeted communications outweigh privacy and security concerns. Businesses are missing critical channels of communication. Employees expect more information; more often, the business can be the single point of truth for Critical Event Management.

How Employees Trust Employer Communication

“The survey painted quite an interesting picture. To summarise, it showed that people would look first and foremost to a government message but, on a secondary level, people don’t necessarily trust governments to look after their personal data. In fact, they would put their trust in an employer to look after their personal data and their personal information and contact details.”

The survey helped show how communication, when carried out in a clear manner, can activate employees in the organisation to help speed up the recovery through particular events.

“The report also showed that businesses haven’t really considered what is going to activate their employees to get them to do what is needed, at the time it needs to be done – because this will ultimately help recovery in a much more efficient manner.”

The report highlights the fact that a critical event management plan cannot be looked at in isolation. It is not just about having a communication mechanism. It’s about getting insights to help the organisation be more productive with the two key pillars – prescriptiveness and predictability.

Critical Event Management is an ongoing priority

“Going through this piece of research, the timeline (in the image above) is extremely interesting, especially from the perspective of foreign and international business that have offices in cities across the world. The slide demonstrates and highlights that, almost certainly, such businesses will have to deal with something somewhere every year.”

“A global business leader looking at this slide will be driven to get something in place. Leaders are talking about what happens post COVID-19, but bushfires are also a 2020 issue. This sort of impact is not just going to go away.”

Everbridge wants to try and highlight that; not just in terms of an incident timeline but what these incidents cost. The cost from a global economy perspective coupled up the individual costs from things like GDP.

The report concludes that although many organisations are starting to implement a CEM plan, most efforts are still quite immature. Lack of planning, hence lack of implementation, could lead to a longer, more expensive recovery.

“The reliability of any CEM is communication. Communication is as critical as the speed at which it’s communicated. The right approach is to have a flexible, multi-channel, dynamic plan, including frequent communications using the various channels depending on the impact and scope of the incident.”

PARTNER

Qlik’s vision is a data-literate world, where everyone can use data and analytics to improve decision-making and solve their most challenging problems. A private company, Qlik offers real-time data integration and analytics solutions, powered by Qlik Cloud, to close the gaps between data, insights and action. By transforming data into Active Intelligence, businesses can drive better decisions, improve revenue and profitability, and optimize customer relationships. Qlik serves more than 38,000 active customers in over 100 countries.

PARTNER

CTC Global Singapore, a premier end-to-end IT solutions provider, is a fully owned subsidiary of ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) and ITOCHU Corporation.

Since 1972, CTC has established itself as one of the country’s top IT solutions providers. With 50 years of experience, headed by an experienced management team and staffed by over 200 qualified IT professionals, we support organizations with integrated IT solutions expertise in Autonomous IT, Cyber Security, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure, Workplace Modernization and Professional Services.

Well-known for our strengths in system integration and consultation, CTC Global proves to be the preferred IT outsourcing destination for organizations all over Singapore today.

PARTNER

Planview has one mission: to build the future of connected work. Our solutions enable organizations to connect the business from ideas to impact, empowering companies to accelerate the achievement of what matters most. Planview’s full spectrum of Portfolio Management and Work Management solutions creates an organizational focus on the strategic outcomes that matter and empowers teams to deliver their best work, no matter how they work. The comprehensive Planview platform and enterprise success model enables customers to deliver innovative, competitive products, services, and customer experiences. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with locations around the world, Planview has more than 1,300 employees supporting 4,500 customers and 2.6 million users worldwide. For more information, visit www.planview.com.

SUPPORTING ORGANISATION

SIRIM is a premier industrial research and technology organisation in Malaysia, wholly-owned by the Minister​ of Finance Incorporated. With over forty years of experience and expertise, SIRIM is mandated as the machinery for research and technology development, and the national champion of quality. SIRIM has always played a major role in the development of the country’s private sector. By tapping into our expertise and knowledge base, we focus on developing new technologies and improvements in the manufacturing, technology and services sectors. We nurture Small Medium Enterprises (SME) growth with solutions for technology penetration and upgrading, making it an ideal technology partner for SMEs.

PARTNER

HashiCorp provides infrastructure automation software for multi-cloud environments, enabling enterprises to unlock a common cloud operating model to provision, secure, connect, and run any application on any infrastructure. HashiCorp tools allow organizations to deliver applications faster by helping enterprises transition from manual processes and ITIL practices to self-service automation and DevOps practices. 

PARTNER

IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

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