BCI Emergency Communications Report 2020

State of the art technology enables faster communications

This year’s report found an increase in organizations using emergency notification and/or crisis management tools – 67% compared to 59.3% in 2019. This rise in popularity of using specialist emergency notification and crisis management tools/software suggests many of the organizations have decided to switch to specialist tools rather than rely on the free options available in the market. The companies using a software/tool are significantly faster in communications than those without.

The report also found that an increasing number of organizations prefer using software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions rather than on-premise software solutions. Nearly two-thirds of organizations (65.9%) are electing to use a SaaS solution, whilst under a fifth (19.5%) are using on-premise installed software. A SaaS solution can help to deliver a seamless emergency communications solution across multiple devices and can also help surpass the problem of adopting a new solution on legacy systems, an issue highlighted as a barrier to adoption by over half (51.2%) of respondents in the BCI 2019 Disruptive Technologies Report.

Lack of budget is the most cited reason for not employing an emergency communications tool, with over a third (36.4%) reporting they had no budget was defined for emergency communications tools or software. Just under a fifth of respondents (19.1%) felt that their organization was too small for such a tool to be adopted.  

In terms of activation timing for emergency communications plans, the report found out that companies are faster than last year: Under a third of respondents confirmed that they can activate their plan within five minutes, compared to a fifth in 2019. Furthermore, a small but significant minority (1.6%) claimed activation took zero time due to an automated response based on an IT event/rule. Only 1% of organizations reported that it took over 12 hours to activate their emergency communications plan, down from 2.4% in 2019.

The human factor in crucial for successful communications

The report also analysed some of the key communication challenges and found that people rather than technology which is the primary challenge for ensuring effective execution of an emergency communication plan. Gathering, validating and sharing accurate information is the greatest challenge to organizations during an emergency response, with communicating with staff at second place.

Human error is also the primary cause for plan failure, with lack of accurate staff information and lack of understanding the top causes for failure. Over half of organizations (54.2%) cite communicating with staff as a key challenge during an emergency. At the same time, however, under two-thirds of organizations (61.7%) seek to ensure that employees’ contact information is kept up to date.

Email remains one of the favoured method of communication in a crisis situation

In terms of channels, email remains the preferred method of communication for all scenarios, whether internal or external. However, an alternative means of communication should be considered in the case of a network or system outage, particularly as cyber-attacks are a frequent cause for triggering an emergency communications plan.

Other report findings include:

• Higher levels of investments in technology and training means 73.1% of organizations are achieving their expected response levels.
• Nearly half of organizations (41.4%) now have a secure messaging app integrated into their emergency communications plan.
• The number of organizations who have activated their emergency communications plan over the past year has risen marginally to 71.6% (2019: 71 %) and organizations are increasingly using these real-life activations to improve process and procedure.
• Adverse weather/natural disaster and IT/telecoms outage are the most frequent reasons for emergency communications plans being activated in the past year.
• The importance of the external communications/PR department is crucial to the effectiveness of an emergency communications plan, particularly for larger organizations who could see significant customer or share price impact if incorrect or false news is spread.

• IoT devices are currently being used by less than a quarter of organizations, with over a half not having any plans to implement them. However, the number of organizations who are employing IoT technology or plan to do so has risen by 5% this year to 38.3% (2018: 33.0%).
• Despite increased international travel, preparations for staff travelling abroad is surprisingly low: only just over a third (39.7%) have a comprehensive travel risk management plan in place and under half (48.2%) ensure reliable contact information is collected for staff travelling abroad.

Rachael Elliott, Head of Thought Leadership at the BCI, on this year’s report:

“Rarely in our research do we witness such a tangible improvement year-on-year. It is therefore extremely encouraging to see that investment in new technologies coupled with an increased dedication to training and exercising has resulted in improvements in both the effectiveness of response and the time it takes for plans to be activated. Once again, however, it is human failure that is the cause for plans to fail, and we would encourage organizations to continue to ensure that contact details are kept up-to-date and keep up the renewed vigour we are seeing in terms of rehearsing and exercising.”

Christian Götz, co-founder of F24 AG, member of the Executive Board and responsible for Sales, Marketing and HR, on this years report:

“I remain convinced that professionals working together with sound, properly implemented technology can handle critical situations far better than without it. I am pleased to see that once again more companies than previously (67%) use a software or tool and thereby are not only significantly faster than those without, but also profit from many additional benefits. The adaption of technology plays a crucial role in order to minimize the consequences of emergency and crisis situations – and this is the overall target we are working on.”

About F24

F24 is Europe’s leading Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider for resilience. More than 5,500 customers worldwide rely on F24’s digital solutions, which support companies and organisations through all areas of resilience. Solutions cover business messaging and service notification, emergency and mass notification, incident and crisis management, as well as governance, risk and compliance.

F24 supports customers in virtually every sector ranging from energy, healthcare, industry, finance, IT, tourism and aviation to a wide variety of public organisations. Many years of international experience have made F24 experts in improving resilience with digital solutions.

The company was founded in 2000 in Munich, where F24 AG’s head office is still located. Today, F24 supports companies and organisations in more than one hundred countries, via more than 20 locations in Europe and beyond. The F24 AG Board of Directors consists of F24 co-founder Christian Götz and the spokesperson Dr. Jörg Rahmer.

In July 2020, Europe’s leading software investor Hg became the majority shareholder in F24 AG. Since then, F24 continues to grow within the second phase of its buy-and-build strategy to further accelerate growth and expand the position as market leader in Europe.

In 2018 F24 was the first company based in Europe to be listed in the Gartner report for Emergency and Mass Notifications Systems (EMNS) and meet the stringent requirements of this prestigious institute. In addition, F24 is included in the Forrester Wave™: Critical Event Management Platforms Q4 2023, which looks at “The 10 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up”. This makes F24 one of the most relevant resilience providers worldwide.

Security is a top priority for F24, which is why the highest and most up-to-date safety standards are in place. In 2010, F24 became the first company worldwide to have their Integrated Management System for Information Security (ISMS) and Business Continuity (BCMS) certified by “The British Standards Institution” (BSI). Since then, F24 AG and most of its subsidiaries have been certified up to ISO/IEC 27001 and ISO 22301 standards. In addition to annual audits by an independent accredited institution, successful re-certifications according to the international standards ISO/IEC 27001:2013 and ISO 22301:2019 took place in 2013, 2016, 2019 and 2022.