CI Readers Weigh in on Emergency Notification

Astounding. That's the best word to describe the proliferation of emergency notification vendors as well as the growth of the tools and services they offer. Formerly message blasters with little intelligence and a high cost of ownership, today's notification systems are smart, flexible, and packed with features and functionality that are actually useful and being put to use.

Recently Continuity Insights teamed with AlarmPoint Systems to conduct a study to find out more about trends in emergency notification. This article reveals the finding and shares comments from business continuity practitioners using these tools. The practitioners, Chris Barbour of Toyota Motor Sales USA, Scott Grago of The Clorox Company, and Bill Rider of Johns Hopkins Hospital and University recently joined AlarmPoint's Christel Mes for an interesting and informative webinar on the topic (visit the Webinars Page to view the recorded webinar).

The Results Are In

First, the study. The most incredible finding relates to emergency notification's astounding growth and adoption by business continuity program leaders. In 2005, a similar CI study saw 34.48 of respondents having emergency notification systems installed and active. Another 8.62 percent had systems but were in the process of getting them up and running. The corresponding statistics this time around were 69.44 percent and 5.56 percent, respectively. That's about a 74 percent increase in three years.

Another 14.58 percent don't have a system but do have plans to purchase one. And only 6.94 percent of Continuity Insights readers who took the survey have no plans at all to incorporate emergency notification. In a very short time, emergency notification systems have gone from a nice-to-have to, essentially, a must-have for business continuity program leaders. Just about everybody's got one.

And it seems people are pretty satisfied with their investments. Customer service was ranked as good, very good, or excellent by 86.40 percent of respondents. Delivery on SLAs (service level agreements) received equally high marks, with 86.07 percent of survey takers rating vendor performance good, very good, or excellent. But 20.31 percent of respondents are considering switching providers and 10.94 percent already have. Still, a whopping 68.75 percent of respondents said they have not and are not contemplating a switch.

What Matters?

And what are business continuity professionals looking for in an emergency notification provider and a tool? Reliability of the network, functionality, and ease of use were the top three vote getters.

Grago is not surprised. "When we take a look at any type of service or vendor, reliability and functionality are absolutely critical," he says. Ease of use, maintenance and a low cost of ownership are all important to Grago as well. He says high maintenance products are "not something we want to engage in" preferring "data handshakes" that transfer information from system to system with no human interaction or associated human error.

Rider says he finds it interesting that three were "so close," as he believes the reliability of the network trump all. "Can I get the message out when I need to and who I need to?"

How did the likes of Grago, Rider, Barbour and nearly 70 percent of our survey respondents get management buy-in to make the purchase? Much of it has to do with notification being something that top management can understand easily. It's almost a no-brainer. People must be contacted quickly and efficiently. They've likely received calls from such systems, and they are comfortable with the technology.

Grago said he presented it to his superiors by casting it in terms if "What would be the cost if we didn't have something like this in place?" He says it quickly became clear that having a emergency notification system was "fundamental to what we do." And he said it helped that he also could make a case for the system, as it can be used for "other issues."

Use, Don't Abuse

So, how are organizations using these tools and how frequently? Survey results show that 32.40 percent of respondents use the system to communicate with executives. Another 29.20 percent are using it to contact the entire organization, and 28.80 percent of those surveyed use the system to contact first responders. Only 4.40 percent are using an emergency notification system to contact the supply chain, and even fewer - a scant 1.20 percent - communicate with the surrounding community by way of a notification tool.

As to frequency of use, 46 percent of respondents are using the system during a crisis or emergency, 12 percent quarterly, 11 percent monthly, 7 percent annually, 6 percent daily, and 5 percent weekly. Another 13 percent say they've never used the tool.

Frequency of testing had 35 percent of respondents reporting that they test the system quarterly, 25 percent annually, 15 percent monthly, 8 percent weekly, 4 percent daily, and 3 percent during a crisis or emergency. A full 10 percent of respondents have never tested their emergency notification systems.

Rider says the system is used daily at Johns Hopkins, where the emergency notification process started in IT and later expanded to clinical teams. "It is tested daily because it is used daily," he says.

Rider recommends "encouraging the use" of emergency notification systems "while controlling the scope." He says "one of the risks is that when a lot of people utilize the service, you run the risk of desensitizing people to the messages if the use is too broad."

He suggests developing an "acceptable use policy that kind of - I don't necessarily want to say limits its use - but at least puts some controls around the content of messages, the format of messages, when it is it acceptable to use the service. The kind of rules everybody can work from."

Grago says his organization is also keeping a close eye on system use. "What we are saying is that our primary use for the system is for emergencies" in order to establish a "clearer recognition of its purpose."

As for testing, Grago says Clorox's system is tested regularly "to validate contact information, and we use it for our EOC exercises. We like to use it as much as possible," he adds. "It's one of those things - the more you use it, the more comfortable you become using it."CI