From the Ground Up

Not many people aspire to be the leader when a crisis hits. Too much uncertainty, too much noise and the pressure to respond quickly and correctly is massive.

Imagine my anxiety levels at being a new recruit at Everbridge when Covid-19 hit the US shores. While many other companies and businesses were shutting down, sending staff home and locking doors, I had to hitch up my skirt and get to work. Luck would have it that it was for a company like Everbridge. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined the absolute critical nature of being in a situational deep end with one of the most relevant products and service offerings available in a crisis. Having been involved in the trenches for most of my career, this was just an affirmation that I am now in the right place at exactly the right time.

The realization of starting a channel program from the ground up during this crisis was a little hair raising. I have always had great leaders and mentors around me to bounce ideas off and ensure that my thought processes were sound. Now I found myself as VP of North America at this forward thinking tech company, and having to step up to the plate and work with new leaders, and amazing teams to bring in our partner community to expand their portfolio of products. With some deep breathing and strategic planning, I was ready for this next adventure of my career, and to soar with this amazing company with brilliant teams and dynamic products. Six months later, the challenge for me though, was that I was brand new. All the management textbooks tell you to take your time to entrench your knowledge of the business before taking any radical steps in a new position. The first 100 days for me were unfortunately an initiation by fire! However, here we are, with a new channel program in place and partners chomping at the bits to provide a critical event management platform for their customers in the nick of time.

If you have not heard of Everbridge, here is a quick summary of what we do:

We keep people safe and businesses running, faster by providing our customers with the technology to manage critical events, keep all stakeholders informed by sending time sensitive and critical information to them, wherever they may be.

This can take the form of everyday emergency events including inclement weather, workplace violence or active shooters nearby, acts of terrorism, IT and power outages, critical equipment failures, medical emergencies, or even social media attacks.

The instant nature of the platform, allows users to instantly be informed and to avoid specific hot spot areas, get out of a potentially dangerous situation, notify the relevant people of any crisis they may be in themselves and of course communicate with their company or family about their current situation.

Taking my time was not a luxury I had available to me. The cliché terminology was spinning around our team every day. “Unprecedented” and “the new normal” was cited about every hour.  And we needed to be the solution.  My role specifically was to use my pre-existing relationships with various partners, affiliates and resellers and onboard them with the Everbridge products. Not an easy task in the midst of a pandemic! While everyone is concerned about the future of their own businesses and families, getting a call from me about a potential opportunity was not something any of them were expecting. The best part of all of this though, was this product was so pertinent to the world at this very moment, that it was an opportunity that would put many struggling companies back into a relevant space and have the option to go back to their clients with a solution to an immediate problem.

We have not taken our foot off the gas yet and are working with our partner community, as extended members of our in-direct sales team. Our products are an easy plug in to existing product and service offerings for their clients, ensuring that everyone is at the forefront of the pandemic at home and at the office.

By using this in-direct channel, we have managed to expand our footprint into the furthest reaches of the country, enabling flailing companies in their time of need, as well as providing a much-needed product and service. A double whammy win-win situation.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, we developed and rolled out applications on our platforms to help people, staff and companies communicate critical information that is specific to that person, be it that they are geo-targeted based on a threat nearby to them based on the whereabouts of their mobile device, company communication on the safety aspects of their workplace and even potential Covid-19 contact tracing alerting the individual that they may have been exposed to a Covid-19 positive individual.

By knowing if you are about to enter a hotspot area, you can make an informed decision to remove yourself out of that situation. This can be local or abroad. Many companies have staff working overseas for short or extended periods of time. So often, a person unknowingly finds themselves in harm’s way, just because they were distracted or unaware of a pending or currently unfolding situation in an unfamiliar country. Geo-targeted alerts can literally save thousands of lives, with a simple alert to your device. Not always being fluent in the local language, radio and TV alerts may not be as effective as a warning in your own language. This implementation and alerts have been particularly successful in unrest areas, or where the threat of insurgents to foreign nationals is high.

Because the platform is a software as a service, based in the cloud, it is available globally and accessible via a browser. It is focused on keeping your staff safe regardless of where they are travelling, working, or temporarily living.  This unprecedented environment we find ourselves in today has shown how dependent we are on our mobile devices for communication to our families and staff members. The main aim would be to ensure that the correct information reaches them, so that they don’t have to rely on social media for news updates (Because we all know how reliable that can be), company safety and workplace updates and health and safety information based on the contact tracing data.

Covid-19 has been a landmark in history, with many world leaders and medical experts having to make decisions without the use of too much data. For us to flatten the curve, it is crucial to be able to isolate and quarantine anyone who has been exposed to a positive patient. Reducing exposure as much as possible is the only effective means to ensure that we can get back to some semblance of normality soon.

The contact tracing capabilities of the app is so effective in getting warnings out to potentially affected people, but only if there are enough people subscribing to and feeding into the data. Having this peace of mind for your staff and family alike is unparalleled. Using data to make informed decisions about going to the store, heading back to work or just staying home is the best decision you can make right now.

My experience at working with people in tough situations kicked in. I found that a fast-paced environment was where I felt most alive and the excitement of being in the trenches was where I got the energy to keep going.

I have had some time to reflect over the past few months of my career at Everbridge and I wonder how other companies and executives have coped in their roles. A crisis can take its toll on your mental state as well as your physical being. Not to mention the pressure on relationships, both at the office and at home. Stress relating to lack of sleep, financial uncertainty and the unknown future can make even the most even mannered person lose their cool.

As I write this, I would love to hear from managers, business owners and executives on your challenges in the workplace over this pandemic period. I do believe we can all learn from each other and implement processes in the workplace that can assist us in the future.

What was your biggest win and what was your bad decision that you wish you could take back? How have your staff adapted to this “new normal” and what have you implemented that you will keep long term?

Nobody thought for a moment that this work-from-home trend would be a possibility for most companies, and yet it is potentially something good that has come out of the pandemic in terms of single parents able to spend time with their kids while being super productive at home.

We are now focusing on getting everybody back to work and into a safe environment. It is all good and well saying that all your staff must now come to the office or factory, but it is more important to ensure that they all remain safe and healthy in that environment. Not only can we assist in ensuring that the workplace remains a safe space, but with the continuous contact tracing can immediately report back if a member of staff has potentially been near the virus, enabling them to self-quarantine and not infect staff back at the office.

As for me, I know I am in the right place to make a difference, and I hope that with the brilliant teams at Everbridge, we can spread the knowledge quicker, make better decisions faster than we spread the virus, so that we can make a marked difference in the curbing of the pandemic and save more people’s lives.