The first stage to choosing a tool is to understand your needs and your target structure, so that you can be clear on the expected added value.
After that, your decision can be determined around four stages, namely:
- Consider: Understand your business needs, the challenges it should resolve, and identify the key requirements that a tool should deliver against.
- Evaluate: Determine the best tools that can address these needs and shortlist accordingly.
- Rank: Classify the range of potential tools based on the initial selection criteria.
Select: Choose the tool that best suits your organisation.
Consider
- What is our need?
- What is the objective of the tool acquisition?
- What will be the scope of requirements for this tool?
- What organisational changes could be associated with this acquisition, from initial implementation to ongoing management?
- What is our budget?
- What is our management’s involvement in this project?
- How will our organization evolve in the short and medium terms?
- Will the tool be able to benefit other areas of the business, such as communication, security, supply-chain, etc?
Evaluate
- Which tool would best suit our need/s?
- What is the gap between “what I have” and “what the tool will allow us to have”?
- What are the relevant tools to benchmark?
- What are the total costs of this acquisition?
Rank
- What is the best tool according to our criteria?
- Which one is the most appropriate for our needs, budget and criteria?
Select
- What is our final choice?
- Have we taken into account all the relevant short / long-term parameters for our organization?
Reflecting on these four elements should help you build a more complete picture of what exactly you are looking for.
The list below – whilst certainly not exhaustive – gives an idea of the variety of tools available on the market, and the wide variety of features offered:
- Everbridge
- RSA Archer
- Fact 24
- Mir3
- AtHoc
So the only way to determine the system that is right for your business is to be clear on your own unique selection criteria from an early stage.
Below is a list of criteria that can guide your choice when reviewing potential crisis management tools:
| Software provider | User-friendliness | Cost | Set up |
| Financial situation | Easy use | Integration costs | Time to set up |
| Workforce | Practicality | Consulting costs | User training |
| Worldwide coverage | Support | Licensing costs | Support and continuous improvement |
| Maturity level | Clear language | Training costs | Scalability |
| Resilience | Accessibility | Features |
| Techs and availability | Access quality | Mass alerting |
| Overlapping | Authentication | Mobile apps |
| Security tests | Data hosting | Fluidity between features |
| Robustness of architecture | Support for access management | Incident management and communication |
These criteria will help organizations determine their unique paths. Going through the process of prioritising certain criteria above others will ultimately help businesses make their choice. Once done, it is worthwhile assigning values to your must-have versus nice-to-have criteria to help your organisation arrive at a weighted score that factors in the elements that matter most to you.
