Holes remain in crisis communications strategies, finds BCI report

Companies made big strides in their crisis and emergency communications during the pandemic but holes in strategies remain, according to the Business Continuity Institute’s (BCI) Emergency & Crisis Communications Report 2022. The warning comes as the threat from Covid-19 begins to fade, and is set to be overtaken by cyber. In this year’s BCI survey, disease outbreak, which topped last year’s survey, caused the same number of crisis response activations as IT or telecoms incidents. Adverse weather and cyber incidents were also among the top triggers for crisis alerts, ranking third and fourth. The past two years have seen big changes in how companies respond to crises and emergencies, prompted by the pandemic and the adoption of new ways of working. According to the survey of business continuity and risk management professionals in 65 countries, management is now more sympathetic to the need for a good emergency/crisis communications solution, and many have invested in dedicated solutions. Launching the report, BCI researcher Rachael Elliot said management has become more interested in crisis communication plans during the pandemic. They have invested in better systems that have helped organisations activate plans faster, she added. Speaking on the launch webinar, Shaun Wilson, group security director at Swiss luxury brand group Richemont, said the pandemic has resulted in greater connectivity and availability of staff, who are now more open to receiving information and taking action. “Incidents and crises are increasingly being managed from mobile devices, activation times have lowered, with the ‘golden hour’ now being better classified as ‘the golden five minutes’, and managers are demanding greater functionality from their tools to allow two-way communication, information dissemination and audit facilities,” the BCI says in the report. It finds that organisations are remodelling the physical crisis room into a virtual environment. Almost two thirds (64%) of organisations now use a virtual crisis room or online collaboration tool dedicated to crisis management. This is just one percentage point lower than those organisations that use enterprise messenger solutions such as Microsoft Teams. Some 55% use a physical crisis room while 56% use crisis conference calls, according to the BCI report. Most companies have now also adopted software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions for their emergency and crisis communications. Three quarters of those surveyed are now using SaaS, compared with just 15% that use in-house systems. And more companies expected to make the move, the report says. For the first time, mobile telephones have become the preferred device to use in an emergency situation, overtaking laptops. Technology is helping speed up emergency response times. About 80% of firms are able to activate plans within an hour, while 45% do so within five to 30 minutes, according to the BCI report. The number that are activating plans in less than five minutes (24%) has fallen from the previous BCI survey, as companies opt to take more time to assess information in the early stages of a crisis. The survey also found that firms that used SaaS emergency systems were able to initiate emergency and crisis plans almost 20% faster than those that did not. Having invested in technology during the pandemic, many organisations are now looking to embed and review their emergency communication tools and systems. Many, for example, are seeking increased functionality from their crisis response systems. The ability to alert staff to a crisis remains the primary driver for nearly three quarters of organisations. But more companies demand more advanced features from their tools, including risk management and risk monitoring, as well as the documentation of processes. Some 30% now use emergency and crisis software to support risk management, and 28% to support risk monitoring, finds the BCI. Increased demand for functionality and security is driving demand for specialist emergency and crisis response systems. Dedicated online collaboration tools are set to surpass enterprise messenger solutions like Microsoft Teams as the chosen method to organise collaboration within crisis teams. But despite the improvements in emergency response communication, serious holes remain in organisations’ strategies, the BCI said. For example, some organisations are writing emergency communications plans without considering an overreliance on one platform, such as Microsoft Teams, that can suffer periodic outages. The growing trend for routing telephone calls through voice-over-IP (VoIP) could also hamper crisis communication during a cyberattack or service interruption. Desk phones have been fading from popularity in office environments for several years, and some firms have abolished them in favour of mobile or VoIP systems. In the UK, the public switched telephone network – the traditional phone network that works even without power – is due to be switched off and withdrawn from service in 2025. “Such a trend may be welcomed from a cost-saving perspective but opens organisations up to being hit by unplanned downtime: VoIP solutions normally rely on the internet, rather than traditional phone lines, to function. If an organisation or individual working remotely loses their internet connection, they may be without means of contact – unless a traditional telephone line backup is in place,” the BCI says. It warns that as companies invest in technology solutions, they risk overlooking human error, which remains the biggest cause of failure in emergency communication. Three of the four top causes of crisis communications failure are down to human error, according to the BCI report. Lack of understanding and lack of accurate staff contact information were the two top causes of emergency plan failure, while problems communicating the urgency of response was fourth, just behind the unavailability of networks in third. Nearly three quarters of organisations surveyed by the BCI carry out training and exercises for emergency plans at least once every year. However, given that so many organisations still blame failure of emergency communications plans on lack of staff understanding, this suggests that training needs to be carried out more frequently and/or training programmes need to be more effective, the BCI says. According to the survey, training and exercises for emergency and crisis communication suffered during the pandemic, but most companies are now looking to rectify this. “Whilst the pandemic had meant emergency communications plans were being activated more frequently, this meant there was little support given to training on new tools and software due to lack of time. As we enter 2022, we are cautiously looking at a future where the immediate pandemic threat has waned and is becoming more manageable. Because of this, we are expecting to see organisations grasp capabilities of new technologies and ensure best-in-class practices are employed within their organisations,” the BCI says.

Holes remain in crisis communications strategies, finds BCI report

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