OnSolve Provides Risk Intelligence Guidance for Organizations to Manage and Mitigate Crises

Risk Intelligence, Combined with Critical Communications Planning, will Enable Security Operations Leaders to Stay Informed and Effectively Manage Critical Events Such as Rising COVID-19 Cases, Severe Weather and Civil Unrest

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OnSolve

Nov 12, 2020, 10:54 ET

ALPHARETTA, Ga., Nov. 12, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- OnSolve, a leading critical event management provider for enterprises, SMB organizations, and government entities, has published four foundational best practices that organizations of all sizes need to consider to effectively protect their people, property and assets during evolving crises that pose risk to operational continuity.

"Gathering, assessing and validating key information is essential when making decisions during a critical event," said OnSolve Vice President of Global Security Solutions Matt Bradley. "Risk intelligence is critical now more than ever and leveraging AI-driven technology to monitor and analyze data in real time can further enhance leaders' ability to protect their employees and maintain operational continuity when it matters most."

As organizations manage and mitigate potential critical events, OnSolve is advising organizations of all sizes to adhere to the following best practices:

1. Determine actual organizational footprint.

Security operations' remit has stretched far beyond the walls of an organization's headquarters. Knowing if your people or assets are in harm's way is the first step to proactively responding to a potential threat. Today's environment consists of geographically distributed workforces due to the global pandemic; goods moving between locations with increased speed; and infrastructure strategically located across vast areas. Having an accurate understanding of where those strategic assets sit and where they may be headed is essential to planning, mitigating, and avoiding risk.

2. Ensure intelligence is timely, relevant, detailed and usable.

The need to quickly gather accurate information on how a critical event is evolving is key. Yet, for that intelligence to be valuable, it must overlap verified data with how it impacts an organization's people, assets, and operations. Remember: more data is not always better. The quality of insights is what counts, and you only want to receive a level of information that your team can reliably process and act upon. Once protocols are established, decision makers can base their directives on a solid footing of detailed facts. Ensure you are informing your security operations protocols with verified, objective sources focused on public safety imperatives, and use AI-driven risk intelligence solutions to increase the speed and accuracy of the analysis output.

3. Embed critical event management into internal communications DNA.

Organizations need to adopt a mechanism for quickly, clearly, and concisely sharing information, among leadership, employees in the field and incident management teams. The cadence of these critical communications should be based on pre-determined triggers and escalation thresholds. Security and safety teams should test their protocols regularly to ensure dependability and train employees to react and respond in near real time.

4. Provide an easy and reliable channel for teams to communicate.

For optimal critical communications success, ensure your critical communications operations have a 'check-in' feature or wellness check feature, and that your teams know how it works. This will be widely helpful should a critical event strike and you need to ensure employees, drivers, suppliers, and other vendors are safe, or impacted by a critical event. For example, against the backdrop of the global COVID-19 pandemic, it will also help manage how rising cases are impacting your workforce and can provide meaningful insight for HR leaders to know if and how employees are impacted and/or unable to accomplish work responsibilities. Critical communications is an ongoing, two-way dialogue between leadership and employees, in which the former provides valuable information with the goal of keeping everyone safe and productive, while the latter recognizes alerts are vital for successfully handling risk. Internal alignment through planning and practice will also ensure external cohesiveness when engaging vendors, customers, and public safety authorities.

With the predicted surge in COVID-19 cases, coupled with evolving political unrest and the unpredictability of severe weather, organizations need to think ahead to keep their people safe, informed, assured and productive. An AI-powered risk intelligence solution and a strong critical communications plan will keep businesses and communities ahead of uncertainty. To provide guidance and best practices, OnSolve also recently created a COVID-19 resource center which includes business continuity lessons, advice and Q&As to help organizations make informed business decisions on monitoring and managing the COVID-19 pandemic.

About OnSolve
With over two billion notifications sent annually and over 60 years of proven support to both the public and private sectors, OnSolve delivers critical event management solutions backed by unmatched industry expertise, which gives our customers the ability to proactively keep everyone informed, instill confidence, foster teamwork, mitigate disruptions, improve operational outcomes, protect assets, and save lives. We do that through a SaaS-based global portfolio that delivers scalable, easy-to-deploy-and-use solutions for the rapid and secure exchange of vital information and coordination among organizations, people, devices and partners, regardless of the situation or level of need.

SOURCE OnSolve