| | DECEMBER 20218CIOReviewIN MY OPINIONWhen managing a crisis, the command center is the heart of the operation. How effective and efficient it performs can affect the level of impact the crisis has on your employees and organization. In the last couple of years, many crisis management plans have moved towards virtual command centers versus physical command centers. In response to COVID-19, many organizations have been forced to adapt and operate with a virtual command center, whether they planned for it or not. cxLoyalty has migrated to a virtual command center model over the past few years and, as a result,our crisis management plan is more effective. The key to our success has been our use of technology and embracing collaboration, specifically through Microsoft Teams. With this tool, four functions of our command center operations were enhanced: Resource Coordination, Situational Awareness, Communications and Security. Resource CoordinationIn a crisis, response time needs to be timely and quick. To achieve this, crisis management plans need methods to reach the crisis management team and to keep contact information current. We found that a collaboration tool can help streamline these areas:1. The collaboration tool can reside on all employee devices; PC, laptop and mobile phone(s). 2. The employee contact information already normally part of the Human Resources' system can be loaded into Active Directory and then be accessed by the collaboration tool.These capabilities allowed us to rally the right employees with a meeting invitation containing a one-step link to join the meeting from any device. Once in the meeting, if the team finds they need the input of another subject matter expert, the employee can be called directly from the tool and automatically joined into the meeting. MANAGING A CRISIS IN 2021By Robin Hillman, Senior Director, Global Continuity, Crisis Management and Security Awareness, cxLoyalty
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