Emergency Management
What's your worst-case scenario?
It’s in the ‘all hands to the pumps’ situations when you really find out what you and your organisation are made of. How deep is your capability and how flexible and comprehensive are your processes and systems?
For every organisation, what constitutes an emergency or event is different. It could be a major conference or a nationwide sporting event, a tsunami, terrorist incident, pandemic, fire or flood. When they happen, though, they tend to galvanise your team and draw the focus of management,
shareholders, Ministers and the media.
Our experiences working with organisations around emergency response have taught us that three of the most critical aspects of any such response are finding the right information, visualising it in the right context and then having the ability to communicate and collaborate with others.
In other words, it’s not just planning and preparation; it’s also about having the capability and flexibility to respond swiftly and accurately with a wide range of stakeholders. Most systems on the market aren’t that flexible, and, as we all know, no plan survives its fi rst contact with an event. A system needs to be able to adjust on the fly.
We have seen too many situations where the IT solution goes from being a valuable tool to a hindrance because it was unable to adapt to the changing requirements during an incident.
Being able to visualise the battle space (for emergency responders) is a powerful capability that has really only come into its own in the last couple of years. This is due, in part, to the general consumerisation of GIS mapping (Google and Bing Maps), cheap readily-available GPS systems in vehicles and cell phones, internet communication apps like Skype and Messenger, social
networking tools that allow the public to share information more readily, and a plethora of network technologies (broadband, wi-fi , 3G, satellite…) with far wider coverage, and easier to use with a range of different devices like smart phones and netbook PCs.
Leveraging the extensive Microsoft platform, we are able to offer solutions that are both comprehensive and flexible enough to give you the tools to plan and respond to almost any situation – even the things you may have never thought of!
One of our core offerings is E•SPONDER, a command and control system based on Microsoft SharePoint. E•SPONDER is used by around 2,500 first response agencies (including the US Department of Homeland Security, Police, fire and local government organisations) in the United States, and in other countries like Australia, Canada and Iceland. E•SPONDER is also used in a number of private international organisations such as Microsoft, Kraft Foods, Save the Children, and World Vision.
Here in New Zealand E•SPONDER is being used by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to respond to situations that potentially affect Kiwis abroad, and to assist with humanitarian response with our Pacific neighbours.
We are also currently working with the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management (MCDEM) to provide a national, regional and local civil defence emergency planning and
response capability.
The potential benefits for your organisation’s critical response efforts are huge and so we have formed a dedicated team, focused on Emergency Management and Public Safety, and have been pulling together best of breed solutions and partnerships so that we can provide strong advice and market-leading capability into your business.
Bryan Gallagher (previously Microsoft’s Defence and Public Safety Technology Specialist) and Ryan Day (previously a Senior Project Manager at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade) are both experienced in the development and implementation of Emergency Management Information Systems (EMIS) and provide a dedicated focus on this critical area within Intergen.
If you’d like to talk more about emergency or event management, please email bryan.gallagher@intergen.co.nz