There is an inevitable cost attached to mitigating risks. Whether in SaaS or On-Premise mode, there will always be licensing, integration, communication and implementation costs over contract periods of three years.
Whilst it is natural to ask about a possible return on investment, it’s also necessary to look at the various functional gains associated with the use of such a tool.
To back this up, we have used data from the latest “Cost Savings And Business Benefits Enabled By A Critical Event Management Platform” economic impact report by the American firm Forrester. Published in July 2020, this report contrasts non-tooled and tooled crisis management responses from different perspectives.
1. Time saving
According to the report, a tool can help maintain business and revenue during critical events through both faster detection and response to unpredictable events. What’s more, the tool will have a positive impact on employee productivity.
To illustrate this, the report uses as a reference an average loss of €7 333 per minute, as well as an estimated time of 30 minutes to bring the required crisis team together. Taking these two factors into account, the report notes a loss of €219 995 to a business before it has even started launching any of its various action plans.
In the tool-equipped version, the time to gather a crisis team is closer to five minutes on average. That is a reduction of nearly €183 329.
Based on an average of 6% of workers unable to work due to weather conditions each year (and a resulting annual shortfall of 17 hours of work), and factoring in each employee’s contribution to the organization of €350 per hour, the report presents an estimated contribution loss of €6,900 per employee per year.
In a tool-based scenario, reliable advance notification helps the organization plan and save 50% of potential lost hours, either by promoting working from home or by providing alternative routes and transport options. In this situation, 80% of the hours saved are recovered in productive work time.
2. Resource savings
A second possible approach when talking about ROI concerns resources. Let’s take the example of a team working on monitoring alert signals, following up on incident files, and filling in X monitoring files and Y action logs.
Faced with these different tasks, the tool will allow, on the one hand, an increase in the speed of handling the above events, but above all an optimization of procedures thanks to digitalization. On the other hand, its automated qualities also factor in an increase in the scope of action.
Sharing tools is a significant economic gain. Indeed, we sometimes meet organizations that have:
- a different communication tool per business unit
- a different crisis management tool per department
- a security camera analysis tool
- a physical access analysis tool
- a physical security incident handling tool
- a logical security incident handling tool
This brings several contracts, with associated costs, training, licenses, system updates.
3. Energy savings
The data available through solutions such as Everbridge allows security teams to generate feedback that improves the organization’s ability to predict future critical events, and therefore its ability to prepare for and respond to them.
A tool which regularly encounters a wide range of clients from different backgrounds and sectors benefits from an improved feedback panel; a huge positive that is therefore shared across all clients, helping each company be even better prepared. With no further questions about who to warn or how to do it, resources are freed up to focus on the essential matters and successfully resolve any crisis situation.
