Building an effective communications infrastructure

By: Paul DíArcy, Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, MessageOne, Inc.

Mark Twain once said, ìThere are only two certainties in life ñ death and taxes.î Well in the world of business continuity, it is fair to say there are only two certainties in a disaster or crisis: you canít plan for everything and youíll never know which communications channels will be viable. With these points in mind, it is critical that IT departments understand the importance of communication continuity, because if you canít communicate, you canít recover.

Emergency Notification Systems New Cornerstone
The best place to start is to build an effective crisis communications plan that includes a continuity plan addressing as many communication channels as possible. It is always wise to assume the worst case, as you canít guarantee your infrastructure or staff will be available during a disaster situation. Companies need a way to quickly, reliably and securely deliver messages to ñ and collect information from ñ thousands to hundreds of thousands of constituents in real-time using all available modes of communication. This is essential not just for emergency communications, but often for day-to-day communications impacting operations as well.

In the past, organizations have often relied on manual call trees to deliver crisis communications (or to deliver information during a crisis), but these are prone to breakdown when you need them most and take too long to support a true emergency situation. An average manual call tree delivering 1000 messages takes four hours and is only 35% effective, while an automated notification system takes only 15 minutes (on average) to actually reach 95% of recipients. According to a Gartner Group report from 2005, ìmanually dialed telephone call trees are no longer acceptable for emergency notification. Effective incident management requires automation to ensure business continuity.î Emergency notification systems are becoming the cornerstone of business continuity with the vast majority of companies either currently using them or evaluating their use.

Expectations High for Automated Emergency Notification
There are a range of common expectations for companies that use emergency notification systems. A poll of customers from MessageOne found that corporate objectives for emergency communication include: 1) execute response and recovery efforts; 2) decrease risk of injury to employees; 3) avoid misallocation of limited emergency response resources; 4) minimize loss of property, disruption of operations; 5) reduce rumors surrounding recovery; and 6) avoid wasting resources. In order to meet these business objectives it is incumbent to understand and maximize the communication channels available in a crisis.

There are a finite number of discrete communication channels available for crisis communications including company phone, home phone, mobile phone, fax, company email, home email, Blackberry, and SMS. The challenge is to have many options and to identify the communication channel that will work in a disaster where different scenarios have different effects on the infrastructure. For instance, in a major power outage such as the 2003 northeast power outage, the most likely open communication channels were home and mobile phones, Blackberry and SMS. While in the 911 terrorist attacks the best options were home email, Blackberry and SMS. In the case of Hurricane Katrina, where many people were dislocated from both home and work, there were no dependable channels for communications throughout the week following the disaster. In this unusual case, companies whose notification solutions provided inbound hotlines for employees to call in for messages from wherever they were resettled were best prepared to maintain ongoing communications.

Crisis Communication Benefits
Effective crisis communication can be a defining event as it reinforces that the company is in control and on top of the situation. With the efficiency and reliability of an emergency notification system, the company is the first source for information and ensures that only factual information is disseminated. In addition, an automated crisis response system reaches people in a controlled manner, demonstrates competence and control, and provides an effective mechanism for people to request help if they need it. Finally, through an emergency notification system with two-way polling, the company can be ensured that all stakeholders have been reached and have confirmed delivery of the message

Five Essential Requirements to Evaluate Notification Requirements
When evaluating an emergency notification system, there are five essential notification requirements you should look for. First, the infrastructure should always be available with dedicated capacity and an infrastructure dedicated to disaster recovery. Next, it is absolutely imperative that a company maintain accurate contact information for its key constituents. This means having a system that synchronizes with human resources, directory, email and DR planning systems, and also includes auto-synchronization of new employees, and auto-notify to prompt users to regularly update key data. The third essential requirement is to make sure it is easy to send a notification during a crisis. If it is a complicated, highly specialized function, it may be too difficult to activate in a true emergency. Look for systems that offer easy and timely options such as the ability to activate through the web, via live 24/7 phone support, or on a web services API.

Donít forget to consider security and data privacy, the fourth key requirement. There should be a way to control who has access to employee contact data, and who can send emergency messages. It is a useful feature to be able to compartmentalize departments and/or locations so they do not easily interfere with each other. Finally, it is important to choose a system that supports both inbound and outbound communication to offer the widest variety of options in a crisis.

Ten Top Rules for Emergency Notification Use
Once your company has installed or is planning to implement an emergency notification system, there are ten key rules to consider getting the most value out of the system. It is not enough to just have a system; you must make it a key organizational objective.

1) Automate ñ enough said, it is the only way to ensure effective crisis communications in todayís world.

2) Implement a system you can depend on ñ Make sure that the system is hosted from world-class disaster recovery datacenters and not dependent on your infrastructure, facilities, or staff.

3) Build a model for 2-way crisis communication ñ donít underestimate the value of being able to collect information from people in an emergency, to confirm their safety, or to bring recipients into a live conference bridge as they respond.

4) Understand your use cases ñ Understand all the different uses for your notification solution such as crisis management, IT outage notifications, security alerts, and operational uses.

5) Pre-plan your scenarios ñ plan ahead for the specific disaster situations that could impact your company. Think about your geographic location, your facility, and your vulnerabilities.

6) Ensure all contact information is accurate ñ it is not helpful to have an automated notification system if the data is out of date and you canít reach your key employees. Make sure that your system is fully synchronized with your essential HR, DR, and mail systems.

7) Build security into the plan ñ Ensure that the system allows users to notify their specific constituents without comprising private contact information of your key executives and other employees.

8) Test, test and then test again. If you havenít tested, itís not a plan. A good system should be easy to test and the process makes it that much more reliable and easier to implement when the need arises.

9) Understand the data ñ Study your test audit trails and understand who wasnít reached and why ñ use this as an opportunity to collect up-to-date contact information.

10) Take the necessary steps or procure technology solutions to ensure email continuity for your corporate email so that in an emergency you are able to rely on that important form of communication.

Summary
In summary, building an effective communication infrastructure today means looking to automate with an emergency notification system that best meets your companyís crisis communication needs. But donít be tempted to follow the advice from another famous Mark Twain quote, ìNever put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.î The time is now and the need is now.

About Paul DíArcy
Paul DíArcy, Vice President of Worldwide Marketing for MessageOne, is an expert on email and crisis communication infrastructure. With more than 15 years of technology marketing experience, he is a published author and frequent speaker at leading industry conferences.

Reprinted with permission of Disaster Recovery Journal

MessageOne will be exhibiting at the Business Continuity Expo and Conference held at EXCEL Docklands from 28th - 29th March 2007 - the UKís definitive event for managing risk, resilience and recovery. This event will explore the solutions and best practice to ensure operational continuity and protect a companyís interests before during and after an incident.

This article is distributed by Disaster Recovery Journal

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