Everbridge’s New Enterprise Certification Program Will Help Answer Increasing Investor Focus On Resilience

Everbridge’s New Enterprise Certification Program Will Help Answer Increasing Investor Focus On Resilience

The turbulence of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought business resilience to the forefront for stakeholders. This has been exacerbated by a series of devastating natural disasters in 2021. Global heatwaves have sparked large scale wildfires in Oregon, California, and Northern Russia; floods in China have caused some $10bn of damages, and much of Western Europe including Germany, Belgium, and Switzerland have faced unprecedented flooding. Firms are also afflicted by weakened global supply chains as a result of increased pandemic security measures surrounding shipping (involved in around 90% of global trade), and a stark rise in cybercrime attacks. Firms are therefore eager to become and be seen as resilient to these types of shocks.

Firms can currently demonstrate this through a variety of international frameworks. ISO 270356 and 22301 cover IT incident management, and security and resilience respectively. Regional legislation, for example the UK Civil Contingencies act, additionally provide a structure for businesses seeking to improve resilience.

There’s an interesting new arrival in this landscape of frameworks. Everbridge essentially created the Critical Event Management category to provide a holistic approach to business resilience and continuity, and works with diverse clients across enterprises and public sector institutions. It has now released a new Critical Event Management Certification for Enterprise Resilience. What’s different about this? It differs in its scope, concerning the full lifecycle of business preparedness, with a focus on diverse events including IT incidents, supply chain continuity, and physical risk. This reflects a general market shift amongst CEM practitioners to integrate diverse use cases into CEM offerings; Everbridge’s recent acquisition of xMatters being a prime example. Business resilience is hard to achieve, and requires businesses to be ‘risk versed’, rather than ‘risk averse’. This is reflected in Everbridge’s certification, which examines the degree to which businesses have forward looking, proactive resilience plans.

The ability to demonstrate business resilience is congruent with the rise of ESG as an investment metric or screening factor, slotting naturally into governance initiatives. And the list of firms who have engaged with the certification – including Dow, Alexion, and Goldman Sachs – supports the point that firms that want to be industry-vertical leaders regard this certification, and the underlying process, to be valuable.