Study: Active Shooters Ranked as Top Organizational Threat, But Majority Lacking Necessary Safety Measures

Everbridge report finds that despite increase in awareness and concern around active shooters, half of organizations don’t have a communications plan in place, and 62 percent never run drills.

BURLINGTON, Mass., March 6, 2019— More than three quarters of organizations list an active shooter situation as their top safety threat, according to Everbridge, Inc. (NASDAQ: EVBG), the global leader in critical event management and enterprise safety applications to help keep people safe and businesses running.  The 2018 Active Shooter Preparedness Report, compiled by Everbridge in partnership with Security Management magazine, focuses on the level of enterprise preparedness for these increasingly prevalent, and potentially tragic and devastating events. The findings, when compared to Everbridge’s inaugural report from 2016, portray a corporate environment with heightened security awareness, which has not, however, translated into tangible preparedness efforts for the majority of organizations.

Heightened Awareness

Seventy-five percent of respondents listed active shooter situations as the “top threat” they are preparing for – up from 64 percent in 2016 – and outranking concerns such as natural disasters, cyberattacks and supply chain disruptions. Additionally, more than twice as many respondents felt that their organization was well prepared for an active shooter incident – from 19 percent in 2016 to 40 percent in 2018. More than two-thirds also reported that their organization was more prepared than two years ago.

Preparedness Deficits

In today’s modern threat environment, organizations are increasingly seeking new tools, processes and technologies to secure their facilities, locate and account for their people and ensure life safety for all employees. However, increased awareness and perceptions of preparedness have not translated to actions by a majority of businesses during the past two years. For example:

• 62 percent of survey respondents reported never running an active shooter drill
• 54 percent have not conducted active shooter education
• Only 15 percent increased physical security spending
• Only 35 percent plan to increase physical security spending in the future

“Every second matters in an active shooter situation,” said Tracy Reinhold, Chief Security Officer of Everbridge. “The findings show that while corporate recognition around the threat of active shooters has improved, the tangible preparedness measures and location-aware communication infrastructure is not in place to improve safety at the majority of companies nationwide. It’s imperative that we work together to refine our security-related processes and investments. Physical safety is a critical employee engagement issue that corporate leadership must take seriously by turning their concerns into investments.”

Communication Needs to Take Place in Seconds, Not Minutes

The majority of organizations (70 percent) said that their top concern during an active shooter event is communicating and confirming the safety of impacted employees, as the majority of active shooter situations are over in less than 10 minutes. Eighty percent of employees prefer that it take seconds for their companies to notify them of an active shooter situation. Yet when asked how long it would take to notify employees of an incident, two-thirds of companies thought that notifications would take minutes.

“These findings directly contradict the idea that organizations are prepared for an active shooter event,” continued Reinhold. “While no organization can truly be ready to deal with such a chaotic and challenging situation, ignoring the need to have a reliable system in place to effectively locate and communicate with employees, responders and other local officials – and not practicing an organization-wide response to such a situation – proves that improvements can still be made. Moreover, the prevalence and purported elevated concerns around these threats emphasizes the need for corporate leadership and executive teams to more emphatically support the investments and process changes required to ensure employee safety and operational resiliency.”

The 2018 Active Shooter Preparedness Report is based on surveyed responses from over 630 security, facilities, business continuity and emergency management professionals. The survey took place in the fourth quarter of 2018. To download a copy of the 2018 Active Shooter Preparedness Report, please click here.

About Everbridge

Everbridge, Inc. (NASDAQ: EVBG) is a global software company that provides enterprise software applications that automate and accelerate organizations’ operational response to critical events in order to keep people safe and businesses running. During public safety threats such as active shooter situations, terrorist attacks or severe weather conditions, as well as critical business events including IT outages, cyber-attacks or other incidents such as product recalls or supply-chain interruptions, over 4,400 global customers rely on the company’s Critical Event Management Platform to quickly and reliably aggregate and assess threat data, locate people at risk and responders able to assist, automate the execution of pre-defined communications processes through the secure delivery to over 100 different communication devices, and track progress on executing response plans. The company’s platform sent over 2.8 billion messages in 2018 and offers the ability to reach over 500 million people in more than 200 countries and territories, including the entire mobile populations on a country-wide scale in Sweden, the Netherlands, the Bahamas, Singapore, Greece, Cambodia, and a number of the largest states in India. The company’s critical communications and enterprise safety applications include Mass Notification, Incident Management, Safety Connection™, IT Alerting, Visual Command Center®, Crisis Commander®, Community Engagement™ and Secure Messaging. Everbridge serves 9 of the 10 largest U.S. cities, 9 of the 10 largest U.S.-based investment banks, all 25 of the 25 busiest North American airports, six of the 10 largest global consulting firms, six of the 10 largest global auto makers, all four of the largest global accounting firms, four of the 10 largest U.S.-based health care providers and four of the 10 largest U.S.-based health insurers. Everbridge is based in Boston and Los Angeles with additional offices in Lansing, San Francisco, Beijing, Bangalore, Kolkata, London, Munich, Oslo, Stockholm and Tilburg. For more information, visit www.everbridge.com, read the company blog, and follow on Twitter and Facebook.

Cautionary Language Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including but not limited to, statements regarding the anticipated opportunity and trends for growth in our critical communications and enterprise safety applications and our overall business, our market opportunity, our expectations regarding sales of our products, and our goal to maintain market leadership and extend the markets in which we compete for customers. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release and were based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections as well as the beliefs and assumptions of management. Words such as “expect,” “anticipate,” “should,” “believe,” “target,” “project,” “goals,” “estimate,” “potential,” “predict,” “may,” “will,” “could,” “intend,” variations of these terms or the negative of these terms and similar expressions are intended to identify these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which involve factors or circumstances that are beyond our control. Our actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied in forward-looking statements due to a number of factors, including but not limited to: the ability of our products and services to perform as intended and meet our customers’ expectations; our ability to attract new customers and retain and increase sales to existing customers; our ability to increase sales of our Mass Notification application and/or ability to increase sales of our other applications; developments in the market for targeted and contextually relevant critical communications or the associated regulatory environment; our estimates of market opportunity and forecasts of market growth may prove to be inaccurate; we have not been profitable on a consistent basis historically and may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future; the lengthy and unpredictable sales cycles for new customers; nature of our business exposes us to inherent liability risks; our ability to attract, integrate and retain qualified personnel; our ability to successfully integrate businesses and assets that we may acquire; our ability to maintain successful relationships with our channel partners and technology partners; our ability to manage our growth effectively; our ability to respond to competitive pressures; potential liability related to privacy and security of personally identifiable information; our ability to protect our intellectual property rights, and the other risks detailed in our risk factors discussed in filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including but not limited to our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017 filed with the SEC on March 12, 2018. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent our views as of the date of this press release. We undertake no intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.

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Media Contacts

Jeff Young
Everbridge
jeff.young@everbridge.com
781-859-4116

Adam Novak
PAN Communications
everbridge@pancomm.com
617-502-4300