THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS - Disaster Recovery Journal · 2019-11-26 · THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF ALERTS AND NOTIFICATIONS AVOIDING COMMUNICATION MISTAKES Proprietary & Confidential 20

MARCH 31, 2014

DRJ SPRING WORLD 2014 BREAKOUT SESSION

THE SEVEN DEADLY SINSOF ALERTS AND NOTIFICATIONS

© 2014 SWN Communications. All rights reserved.

2Proprietary & Confidential

SEND WORD NOW BACKGROUNDA BRIEF COMPANY OVERVIEW


• Leading provider of emergency notification and incident management services worldwide

• Founded as a direct result of personal experiences during 9/11

• Headquartered in New York City

• Award-winning company and alerting service

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WHO WE ARE

NOTIFICATION SYSTEM OF THE YEAR

SMALL BUSINESS ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

MAGIC QUADRANT “LEADER”


• Fully hosted subscription service

• 2,600+ customer accounts, 4.6 million contacts and over 21 million contact points

• Impressive and growing list of Fortune clients

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337 108

7 of the Fortune 10

33 of the Fortune 50

108 of the Fortune 500

WHO WE ARE


ENTERPRISE CLIENT EXAMPLES


ENTERPRISE CLIENT EXAMPLES


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Web Services

Email

Desktop Alerts

Land, Mobile, & IP Phones

Satellite Phones

TV & Radio

In-building Digital Signs

Highway DigitalSigns

SMS & WEA

Pager

Sirens &Speaker Arrays

Multimodal Alerting CapabilitiesVia Built-in Devices, API and

Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)

SWN Direct

SEND WORD NOW MULTIMODAL ALERTING


• Send hundreds of thousands of voice and text messages simultaneously

• Instantly confirm delivery and view responses in real-time

• Granular tracking for every message and modality

• Join conference bridge automatically from outbound call

• Self updating of contact records

• Super administration views and easy assignment of message sending privileges

• Customize your account with dozens of FBAs (features-by-account)

CAPABILITIES OF SEND WORD NOW


CRISIS MANAGEMENT OVERVIEWRESPONDING TO CRITICAL EVENTS


Crisis – an unexpected event with a potentially negative outcome, affecting an organization, company or industry, as well as its products, services and/or reputation

• Most Common Causes of Crises

- Power Outages

- IT Disruptions

- Weather Related Incidents

- Equipment Failures

- Fires

COMMON CAUSES OF CRISES


• A large New Orleans refinery that was providing fuel to Navy helicopters required plant communications

• The Navy helicopters were responsible for bringing supplies to Katrina victims

• As a result, lives of Katrina victims were at stake

CASE STUDY: HURRICANE KATRINA


• Send Word Now sent 250,000 alerts to over 11.0 million people during the first two days of Superstorm Sandy

• Users included the City of New York, FEMA and numerous other enterprises

• Once people’s safety was assured, the goal was to continue business as usual

CASE STUDY: SUPERSTORM SANDY


• Communication redundancy is critical to reliability

• Reliability can be achieved through multiple layers of network and communication paths

• SMS text and BlackBerry® PIN were more reliable means of communication during a disaster

• During a large scale disaster, using low bandwidth-consuming, high information content modalities work better

LESSONS LEARNED


Potential Negative Impacts:

• Legal- Contractual Agreements

- SLA violations

• Productivity- Loss of Productivity

- Wage Losses

• Reputation- Customer Complaints

- Negative Press

- Business Partners

- Suppliers

• Revenue- Direct Loss

- Deferred Loss

• Financial Markets- Share Price

INCIDENTS AND IMPACTS


Reasons why organizations fail to effectively manage crises:

• “It won’t happen to me” mentality

• Thinking the organization is more prepared than it actually is

• “Crisis management resources are a luxury, not a necessity”

• Waiting until there is a fire to start building the fire engine

CRISIS MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES


How do you avoid making headlines for failing to adequately manage an incident?

PREPARING FOR A CRISIS


Crisis Communications Plan- a plan that provides policies and procedures for coordination of communications within an organization in the event of a crisis

• Challenges

- A dispersed workforce

- Accounting for large groups of people

• Benefits

- Communicates facts

- Minimizes misinterpretation, confusion and rumors

- Instructs, and restores order

- Minimizes downtime



Implementation

• Appoint a lead communications coordinator who will be in charge of planning and assigning roles throughout the organization

• Identify methods of effectively communicating with employees, stakeholders, customers, media and regulators

• Set parameters

- Who needs to be contacted when?



THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF ALERTS AND NOTIFICATIONSAVOIDING COMMUNICATION MISTAKES


Failing to remain mobile in a mobile world

Forgetting about overseas workers

Failing to protect your communication network from security breaches

Assuming everything will go as planned

Using complex communication tools

Failing to test your crisis communication plan

Using outdated contact information

THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

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Statistics

• There are 6.8 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide (96% of the world’s population)*

• 5.2 billion of these subscriptions originate from developing nations*

• There will be 1.75 billion smartphone users by the end of 2014*

• It is estimated 21% of the world’s population will own a tablet device by the end of 2014**

FAILING TO REMAIN MOBILE

*www.mobithinking.com; Global Mobile Stats 2013

** www.statista.com/statistics/219909/global-tablet-penetration-forecast/


Challenges• Increasingly mobile world

• How do you communicate with employees who are:

- Working in the field- At home- Traveling

Solutions• Utilize location-based services

• Utilize multiple modalities

• Identify a solution that fits your needs

• Use Native Mobile Applications

• 24/7 Customer Support

FAILING TO REMAIN MOBILE










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Don’t wait until a disaster strikes to identify a means of communicating with employees overseas

Challenges

• Dispersed workforce

• Developing a crisis communication plan that takes other countries’ network infrastructures into account

Solutions

• Utilize multiple modalities

• BlackBerry® PIN and SMS have proven to be reliable when contacting geographically dispersed employees during a crisis

• Test and review how your communication network measures up when sending alerts to other countries

- Affiliate Testing Network

FORGETTING ABOUT OVERSEAS WORKERS


Case in Point: Haitian Earthquake

• When the earthquake hit Haiti, many organizations realized that they did not have an easy way to account for employees

• A large reputable financial institution acknowledged they did not have a mechanism in place

• It moved to implement a solution after realizing how difficult it was to reach employees

• They rolled out a mass notification plan that included more than 100 offices across the world

FORGETTING ABOUT OVERSEAS WORKERS










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• Make sure vendors manage every detail, including equipment location, method of firewall changes, process management, etc.

• Ensure the platform is secure, reliable and resilient

• The most reliable provider is the one that proactively ensures that your account is secured against attacks, system failures and loss

FAILING TO PROTECT YOUR NETWORK


Challenges• Network and system vulnerabilities• Hackers • Email spoofing• System breach• System outages• Data loss• Locations of servers and information

Solutions• Firewalls• Encrypted data (at rest and in transit)• Digital signatures• Redundant data centers and locations• Third-party validation• Compliance with Safe Harbor laws• Two-factor authentication• SSAE 16 SOC I Type II attestation



Case in Point: Ball State University

• Ball State University’s security team reported that someone used public safety as a ruse to send out malicious emails

• The message bore a false subject line of “Emergency Notification” and contained a malicious attachment

• In response, the Security Services office sent out warning messages encouraging students /staff to only open messages from a trusted source

• Digital Signatures can be used to verify the sender and the security of the message content



Desktop Alerting

• Integrated Desktop Alerting can also be used to provide intrusive “pop-up” alerts, bypassing email altogether

• Alerts can be targeted to specific IP ranges

• Responses can be collected from these alerts











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When planning for a disaster, always assume things will not go as planned and key members will not be available

ASSUMING EVERYTHING WILL GO AS PLANNED


Challenges

• Setting up alternative work sites

• Key members are not available

• Instructing employees to perform tasks they have not been trained to perform

Solutions

• Provide frequent updates

• Cross-train employees

• Have a common repository for important documents employees can access and share in the case of an emergency

ASSUMING EVERYTHING WILL GO AS PLANNED










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• When there is a fire and embers are falling around you, you don’t want to read through a 300-page manual to figure out how to use your crisis communication tools

• If you are using Incident Management Services (IMS), Emergency Notification Services (ENS), or an integrated solution, make sure that it is easy to use

USING COMPLEX COMMUNICATION TOOLS


Benefits of Simplicity

• Technology helps simplify complex processes such as managing large amounts of data

• Increases operational efficiency

• Helps organizations comply with regulations

Challenges

• Some tools are clunky and require extensive training

• If the BCM staff leave the organization, so does the know-how

• Level of customization - especially for small companies

• High price

Solutions

• Simplified technology

• Integrated solutions

• SaaS

USING COMPLEX COMMUNICATION TOOLS










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Testing allows you to validate your data, and head off as many data issues as possible prior to an emergency situation

Challenges

• Invalid contact points

• PBX overloads

• Avoiding the “sky is falling syndrome”

Solutions

• Audit trails

• Call throttling

• Prepare your staff

• Don’t overuse alerts

FAILING TO TEST YOUR COMMUNICATION PLAN










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The effectiveness of your communication tool is only as good as your data

Challenges

• Educating your employees about the service you are using

• Managing and updating data for thousands of employees

Solutions

• Testing exercises/drills

• Employee info seminars

• Self-Update

• Utilizing an API

USING OUTDATED CONTACT INFORMATION










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Tony SchmitzChief Executive OfficerSend Word Now

[email protected]

CONTACT INFORMATION

MARCH 31, 2014

DRJ SPRING WORLD 2014 BREAKOUT SESSION

THE SEVEN DEADLY SINSOF ALERTS AND NOTIFICATIONS

© 2014 SWN Communications. All rights reserved.

Documents

THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS - Disaster Recovery Journal · 2019-11-26 · THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF ALERTS AND NOTIFICATIONS AVOIDING COMMUNICATION MISTAKES Proprietary & Confidential 20