Mass notification solutions enable organizations to communicate rapidly and effectively to ensure business operations continue uninterrupted when unexpected events or other situations arise. Whether your organization is public or private, large or small, delivering necessary information to the right audience at the right time is key to business continuity.

In a crisis situation, absolutely every second counts—people need to know what is going on, what they need to do and how things are changing in real-time. From operational updates to notifications with immediate need for action, notification systems meet a variety of needs. They do this by offering a multi-modal approach to situations allowing an organization to communicate to different devices and communication channels, such as:

• mobile and traditional phones
• email
• SMS
• desktop alerts
• mobile push notifications
• RSS feeds
• and more

A true emergency notification solution has unique requirements that make it highly effective under dangerous conditions. Some of the key use cases for a full-featured notification solution include:

• Active shooter situations, to share areas that are safe and let individuals know to take cover.
• Severe weather warnings, allowing operations management teams to let employees know when conditions are unsafe and specific actions to take.
• Violent attacks in the workplace, helping operations and security professionals protect those in danger.
• Cybersecurity events, letting employees know when systems are down and when they expect to be restored.
• Power outages, communicating how quickly power is expected to be restored and any action that needs to be taken immediately.
• Supplier relations, allowing trusted partners to become extensions of your organization by keeping them fully in the loop with developing events.
• Business continuity plans, providing a full range of communication strategies to leadership, employees, vendors and customers.

In many of these situations, timing is of the utmost importance, and simply sending an email that may not be read until a later time isn’t good enough. When crisis looms, a mass notification can quickly and effectively reach all employees with a message that will keep them out of harm’s way and help protect the business, too.

An organization’s mass notification became vital on Wednesday 23rd November 2016. The Dorset Local Resilience Forum used their Dorset Prepared Alerting Service, also known as DPAS successfully to inform partner organizations of an unexploded ordnance in the Corfe Mullen, Dorset area. The mass notification software ensured messages were disseminated quickly to partners via multiple communication channels through voice and text; utilizing telephone landlines, mobile telephones, pagers and email accounts. This ensured a strong representation for the incident’s teleconference, which shortly followed the notification alert.

What do incidents like these tell us?

Organizations of every size need to share critical information and the means to do it.

Whether it’s an oil and gas producer experiencing problems at a processing facility, a manufacturing firm trying to avoid supply chain interruptions, or a local fire department trying to save lives during a wildfire, every organizations in every industry have unique communication requirements. To ensure continuity of operations, as well as employee and public safety, the groups must have the ability to easily and effectively share critical information anytime, anywhere.

About OnSolve

OnSolve is a leading global provider of SaaS-based critical communication solutions for enterprise, SMB, and government customers. The company’s cloud-based software communications platform provides seamless and easy-to-deploy solutions for the exchange of critical information among organizations, their people, devices and external entities with use cases designed to save lives, enhance revenue and reduce costs. More information can be found on the company’s website at www.onsolve.com.