A high-five from Boomerang

A rise in technological advances has seen methods and means of communications progress a long way, in a short amount of time. Yet despite this, when faced with critical incidents that require an urgent response many businesses still rely upon dated, inefficient and flawed communications.

Failure to access, distribute and track incident data is often the main cause preventing companies from escalating a timely response to an emergency situation, which can, in the worst instances, lead to costly operational paralysis. But these problems are avoidable. To deliver a more interactive and auditable model of incident management, companies should consider adopting innovative ‘threading’ technology.

Threading allows matching of messages between companies and end users, irrespective of the quantity and sequence of messages – and without the need for complex and error-prone identifiers in the body of the message. This patented technology can be used to enhance all types of business communications – both internal and customer-focused – but it is particularly effective in the sphere of incident management and in instances that require an urgent response.

With the threading capability, the user is able to escalate and expand an incident escalation through to resolution beyond the initial recipients and manage the whole process by exception. With the threading capability, responses can trigger further automated escalations to ensure rapid resolution to a crisis.

Uniquely, threading allows true automation of any workflow processes enabling market leading help desk software such as BMC Remedy and SAP to fully manage an incident in a crisis situation.

Below we’ve identified the five main benefits of automating critical incident management:

1. A rapid response

Historically, incident notification procedures have been managed by telephone – relying on slow, resource-intensive and manual processes that rarely meet the requirements of real-time response. By automating this process, and using multiple communications channels as highlighted below, organisations can expedite a response, minimise disruption and maximise operational efficiencies.

2. Streamlined processes

By using detailed reporting metrics and analysis to understand the effectiveness of existing incident management processes, a business can invest this knowledge into the management of future incidents; creating a streamlined and more efficient process.

3. A more interactive and auditable model

A unique characteristic of our technology is the application’s ability to manage multiple communications simultaneously. Irrespective of the number of messages or the order of reply, Boomerang’s management system sorts, tracks and manages messages across multiple communications channels. It’s surprising to learn that, despite the relatively straightforward opportunity to build automation into their communications infrastructure, few organisations have integrated ‘messaging’ into their workflow and business processes. And in the rare examples where companies have made the leap, automation is often focused solely on outbound notification and has no ability to handle replies, correlate responses and appropriately escalate incident management in a controlled and measurable fashion.

4. Manage by exception

The availability of a reply path provides organisations with an audit trail that accounts for the status of its stakeholders. Recording responses and then escalating through another communications channel to non respondents allows the incident manager to focus on the remaining few and thus allowing additional follow-up action to be managed by exception. Fundamentally, by building automation into workflow and business processes, threading opens up a transparent dialogue between key stakeholders to assure operational teams that incidents are being appropriately escalated, addressed and rectified – and that the safety of employees is monitored and protected.

5. Time & cost savings

Automation of the critical incident management process can minimize the human, operational and financial costs of critical incidents allowing you to distribute resources elsewhere. Automating workflow on a pre-defined basis for each type of potential incident reduces, and in some cases can completely remove the cost associated with human involvement.