A manufacturing company in mid-Atlantic relies on Everbridge to keep over 17,000 employees safe during using Mass Notification. Mass Notification enables them to communicate with employees at risk during a critical weather event, ongoing health crisis, or security threat.

Critical events such as severe weather, civil unrest, and cyber-attacks, have not only become more frequent over the past several years, but they have altered the way many organizations operate on a day-to-day basis. In addition to those events, add in the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and its clear these situations have the potential to directly affect the well-being of employees and operations, but is enough being done to mitigate or prevent their impact? While organizations cannot prevent critical events from occurring, they can be proactive with their decisions in order to reduce impact. With automated technology, organizations have a major asset toward identifying, responding to, and mitigating critical event damage, ensuring resilience amid a multitude of threats. 

What does it mean to be resilient?  

Resilience is defined as the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties. When a company is resilient, it not only affects their financial stability, but their perception in the eyes of customers and prospects, as well as the morale of team members who play a role in helping the company avoid downfalls. The top performing organizations are not just visionaries, they execute on resilience goals and strategies.  

How often are critical events taking place? In IBM’s “Cost of a Data Breach Report 2022,” it was revealed that 83% of organizations have experienced at least one data breach. In addition, Forbes stated that in 2022, multiple records for extreme weather events were broken as climate change becomes more dramatic all over the world. With the unprecedented volume of critical events, it is vital for organizations to strengthen their resilience. 

Digitalization would pay off quickly for most organizations. Due to the extensive capabilities of automated critical event management solutions, there is a high degree of unrealized potential to improve resilience across organizations of all industries.  

How can organizations achieve resilience? 

Organizations can strengthen their resilience by implementing an early warning system to identify hyper-relevant risks to specific people, assets, or facilities anywhere in the world and alerting the appropriate first responders. IBM also reported that it takes an average of 197 days to identify and 69 days to contain a cyber security breach, but companies that contain a breach in less than 30 days save over $1 million when compared to those who took longer.   

Investing in a position such as a Chief Resilience Officer with a reasonable budget could be a great bridge between executives and the teams who are geared towards protecting employees and assets. Communicating the importance of security and resilience to board executives is a major step toward achieving improvement, especially by showing the impacts in terms of lost revenue or inability to generate revenue, as identified by the IBM study. 

Investing in resilience drives success, and a recent report commissioned by Everbridge and Atos and authored by Dr. Stefan Vieweg, Director of the Institute for Compliance and Corporate Governance (ICC) at the Rheinische Fachhochschule in Cologne, Germany, revealed that only half of decision makers felt even moderately prepared to be resilient amidst such threats. From that reports comes the Everbridge eBook The Research Behind Resilience: Why Prioritizing and Investing in Resilience Matters, where you can read why prioritizing and investing in resilience matters for companies of all sizes, and what can happen when organizations don’t do so. The eBook provides detailed data on the seven key resilience findings from the report, and the six most common characteristics of Europe’s highest-performing organizations.  

Investing in the right technology and automation can help to identify, respond to, and manage the effects of future critical events. Download our eBook The Research Behind Resilience: Why Prioritizing and Investing in Resilience Matters to learn more.  

Although the benefits of deploying Critical Event Management (CEM) are becoming widely accepted, organizations can often struggle to demonstrate the tangible ROI to their key stakeholders, and can face an uphill battle when it comes to securing budget.   

So, is it possible to put a value on Critical Event Management? To answer this question, Everbridge commissioned global market research firm, Forrester Consulting, to conduct an updated Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) Study, and examine the return on investment enterprises realized by deploying Everbridge’s CEM platform.

The 2023 study revealed five quantifiable benefits of Everbridge, and several others that while unquantifiable, provided benefit to organizations.

Reduced business interruptions led to $3 million in efficiency gains

For the composite organization, the use of Everbridge reduced the downtime caused by business interruptions, resulting in up to $3 million in efficiency gains over three years. With CEM, organizations can react faster to unplanned interruptions and outages, communicate with appropriate stakeholders faster, and overall decrease the impact of a critical event.

Reduced IT downtime saved up to $2 million

Not only does the Everbridge platform reduce the potential impact on business operations, but it also decreases the costs associated with IT downtime. The TEI study found that with Everbridge, organizations can save up to $2 million over three years. Increasingly complex IT environments require intelligent solutions that help identify and alert responders to outages as they happen. With improved workflows and automated processes, IT teams can quickly join forces to remediate incidents and reduce downtime.

Increased security team productivity gains $1.5 million

Before Everbridge, security teams overwhelmingly relied on manual and often time-consuming processes to identify and assess potential events. When using our CEM platform however, the same organization gained 24/7 support, and efficiencies in managing data sources and communicating with appropriate stakeholders.

Avoided inventory and property damage saved $1.1 million

Without proactive tools, organizations rely on manual processes to identify upcoming events that threaten inventory and property. However, with Everbridge, intuitive data sets and feeds ensure that organizations can know about threats early, send alerts to those who may be potentially impacted, and avoid avertable damage.

Recaptured employee productivity saved $800,000+

When events are imminent, there’s no time to spare when alerting employees and other internal stakeholders. Before Everbridge, organizations lost significant time trying to get in touch with the right people, at the right time. With our resilience platform however, employee productivity is recaptured, with faster response management and coordination, totaling $861,000 over three years.

The ROI of Everbridge CEM

Based on the analysis of customer feedback and quantified benefit, cost, risk, and flexibility factors, Forrester determined that through using Everbridge’s CEM platform, organizations reduced the time taken to identify and remedy critical events, getting revenue-generating activities back up to speed more quickly. Overall, the Forrester study determined that the three-year risk-adjusted benefit of the Everbridge platform amounted to a total of US$8.47M with an ROI figure of 358%.

Interested in reading the full study? Download the 2023 Total Economic Impact (TEI) of Everbridge Critical Event Management below!

Over 20 years ago, our founders envisioned how technology could be used to create a redundant, scalable, and resilient solution to quickly and reliably alert entire populations in the face of critical events. In that time, Everbridge has built a category-leading, unified critical event management platform trusted by more than 6,500 global organizations. According to a recent Forrester Consulting commissioned study, after investing in Everbridge’s CEM platform, interviewees’ organizations had “the capabilities and resources to effectively respond to and contain critical events, allowing them to better protect employees, company assets, and business processes.”

Since our beginnings, the Everbridge brand has stood for protecting our customers’ most valuable assets, their people. We are pleased to unveil our evolved Everbridge brand, renewing our mission to keep people safe and organizations running.

Our revised logo is an elegant and simple reflection of the resilience we provide to our customers, their rapid response to critical events, and most importantly the speed and upward strength of the recovery process. Our evolved brand is also a reflection of our desire to continue to serve you, our customer, with a modern comprehensive critical event management platform.

We are grateful for your continued support and loyalty as we embark on this exciting new chapter for our company.

David Wagner,

President & Chief Executive Officer, Everbridge

Adlan Hussain, Product Marketing

As noted in the Wall Street Journal in February 2023, physical attacks on the U.S. power grid rose 71% last year compared with 2021 and will likely increase this year.

The U.S. power grid is of critical importance to our national security and economic security, but in an increasingly connected world where physical and cyber attacks are becoming more frequent, executives must be aware of the potential risks posed by malicious actors targeting their power grids. In recent years, malicious actors have increased their efforts to penetrate and damage U.S. power grids through both physical and cyber attacks. This has been seen with the North Korean WannaCry ransomware attack on American energy companies in 2021, as well as other attacks on American nuclear and power infrastructure over the past few years. Malicious actors may also target the grid for financial gain or simply for disruption, making it essential for executives to stay vigilant when it comes to protecting their company’s systems from all types of security threats.

What is critical infrastructure protection?

Critical infrastructure protection (CIP) refers to the efforts to safeguard the essential systems and assets that are vital to the functioning of a society, economy, or nation-state. These systems and assets fall within key critical infrastructure sectors that are considered essential to the functioning of a nation and its people. These sectors are typically identified by governments and international organizations and are recognized as critical because they are vulnerable to physical and cyber threats and attacks that could cause significant harm or disruption to society.

The critical infrastructure sectors can vary slightly depending on the country or organization defining them, but generally, they include power grids, water treatment facilities, transportation networks, communication systems, financial institutions, and other critical facilities. These sectors are interdependent and interconnected, meaning that an attack or disruption in one sector can have a cascading effect on other sectors and society as a whole.

The aim of CIP is to prevent, detect, and respond to any physical or cyber threats that may impact the availability, integrity, or reliability of these critical infrastructures. CIP involves a wide range of activities, such as

• Risk assessment
• Vulnerability analysis
• Threat detection
• Emergency response planning
• Cybersecurity measures

What elements of the power grid are considered CIP?

The United States power grid consists of key elements that all need to be protected, which include;

• Generation: The power grid begins with power plants, which produce electricity from a variety of sources, including fossil fuels, nuclear energy, and renewable resources like solar and wind.
• Transmission: Once electricity is generated, it is sent over long distances through high-voltage transmission lines to substations.
• Substations: These facilities step down the high-voltage electricity to lower voltages for distribution to local areas.
• Distribution: Local distribution systems then deliver the electricity to homes, businesses, and other users.
• Control systems: The power grid is monitored and controlled by sophisticated computer systems that ensure the proper balance of supply and demand and help prevent blackouts and other disruptions.
• Workforce: A skilled workforce is necessary to operate and maintain the power grid. This includes engineers, technicians, electricians, and other professionals.

Ensuring the security and protection of these assets is critical for the functioning of society and the economy, and any disruption or attack on these power grid elements can have significant consequences. Therefore, efforts to protect the power grid from physical and cyber threats are a key component of critical infrastructure protection.

What can be done to protect critical infrastructure

Power grid operators must take a proactive approach when it comes to protecting all of the elements highlighted above. Companies should regularly assess and address weaknesses in their systems, adopt the latest technologies, and stay up to date with government regulations concerning critical infrastructure protection.

Fortunately, there are steps businesses can take to protect their operations from attack. The U.S. government has a set of regulations which sets out guidelines for how companies should implement critical infrastructure protection to protect their power grids from threat actors and other accidents that could cause ballistic damage or other forms of destruction to infrastructure and private utilities operations. Companies should strive to comply with these standards in order to remain secure against malicious intrusions and vandalism, both physical or digital.

Technologies such as Physical Security Information Management can be used to monitor their perimeter and detect threats before they have the chance to penetrate the system. Companies should also look into investing in physical security measures such as surveillance cameras, video analytics, perimeter intrusion detection systems and hostile vehicle mitigation systems.

On the digital side, cyber-attacks are becoming more prevalent for disrupting normal operations. Whether intentional harm or a way to try new code, attackers are actively looking at utilities as a way to cripple both the economy and our daily lives.  While we saw the effects of the Colonial Pipeline attack, it is now realized the payoff can be beneficial and because of this more vulnerabilities are being sought after and exposed. This can be anything from passwords being leaked to legacy systems that have not been updated. Operators now have more pressure to ensure systems are up to date and there is visibility into all systems while staying current with governmental regulations.

To ensure performance in all aspects of grid operations, technology to facilitate and automate the response to incidents can be put in place with a digital operations platform. Bolstering resilience by assessing, acting, and analyzing incidents, disruptions can be handled efficiently and effectively prior to affecting customers and improving responses to future events.

By taking these steps—and staying up-to-date with government regulations—executives can ensure that their businesses remain safe against any type of attack while continuing to provide reliable service for customers across the country. Additionally, it is important for companies to build strong relationships with public security agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and local agencies to share information on threats both at a national and local level.

Contact us to learn how Everbridge can help safeguard your organization with a digital operations platform.

With the growing concern over climate change, organizations are starting to take notice of the risks that come with it. Unfortunately, many organizations are still not fully aware of the consequences of ignoring these risks, which can lead to significant business disruption and financial losses. According to research conducted by Verdantix, “more than half of organizations have less than $1 million to respond to catastrophic events, and 41% of participants stated that they had no budget at all for catastrophic events” (Navigating Climate Threats and Proactive Mechanisms to Achieve Business Climate Resilience, November 2022). With climate change disasters on the rise, it is nearly inevitable that organizations will face a crisis at some point in the near future, and the time to begin preparing is now. 

The current systems and solutions in place for managing climate hazards are often inadequate, and the reliance on traditional insurance has become insufficient. But there’s more to it than just the financial impact—organizations must take the necessary steps to become more resilient to the risks of climate change, keep their people safe, and position themselves to succeed in a dynamic market. 

What is Climate Resilience? 

Climate resilience refers to an organization’s ability to anticipate, prepare for, and adapt to the impacts of climate change while maintaining essential functions and keeping people and assets safe. It requires strategies, actions, and technology that enable organizations to manage and reduce climate-related risks and seize opportunities to build a more sustainable and resilient future. 

The Insufficiency of Traditional Insurance 

Organizations often rely on insurance providers to provide protection against the impacts of extreme weather events. However, traditional insurance models are becoming less reliable due to the unpredictability of such events. There are often significant delays in the dispersal of funds from insurance companies, or sometimes they do not cover the claim at all. The report found that “over two-thirds of organizations had a loss caused by an extreme weather event in the two last years, with most submitting an insurance claim for these events” (Navigating Climate Threats and Proactive Mechanisms to Achieve Business Climate Resilience, November 2022). These delays or denials of funds can leave organizations unable to react and adapt quickly, leading to business disruption and financial losses. 

Increasing External Pressure 

Soon, if they haven’t already, organizations will face significant external pressure in the form of new sustainability regulations. In fact, “74% of participants in the [Verdantix] study highlighted regulatory pressure as a key factor influencing climate risk management budgets” (Navigating Climate Threats and Proactive Mechanisms to Achieve Business Climate Resilience, November 2022). This will require organizations to evaluate their exposure to climate hazards, which means that organizations must take the necessary steps to develop adaptive strategies for risk reduction when dealing with climate hazards due to global warming, ultimately increasing their resilience. Failing to do so will result in further costs and consequences down the line.

Invest in the Future, Not Just the Present

Many organizations focus on short-term costs, ignoring the long-term benefits of investing in resilience. It is concerning that “most firms are not planning to invest in critical climate change risk management solutions” (Navigating Climate Threats and Proactive Mechanisms to Achieve Business Climate Resilience, November 2022). This lack of preparedness can lead to significant costs later on. By investing in an adaptive resilience solution now, organizations can save potentially millions down the line. 

An Adaptive Resilience Solution: How to Improve Climate Resilience 

To build resilience in the face of climate change, organizations need to take a proactive approach. Some tangible steps they can take are: 

1. Implementing adaptation measures, such as reviewing and updating business continuity plans and identifying potential supply chain disruptions. 
2. Exploring alternative finance options, such as parametric insurance. 
3. Reviewing and updating risk management processes to ensure they are inclusive of climate change risks. 
4. Investing in new technologies and solutions that can help better predict and respond to extreme weather events. 

During one of the largest wildfires in Florida history, Bay County used Resident Connection to alert the public of law enforcement activity, inaccessible areas, and areas facing possible evacuation as the wildfire spread.