Execution speed, i.e., how fast resources, people, and processes are mobilized, has always been integral in incident response and management. A traditional measure of execution speed is the time it takes to activate plans, with responders trying to fit within the “golden hour.”
But as crises themselves become more complex and faster moving, the golden hour no longer suffices. Indeed, there’s increased pressure on organizations to activate their incident response plans automatically.
Industry data, however, suggests accelerated incident response is rare and automated incident response virtually nonexistent.
According to the BCI Emergency & Crisis Communications Report 2024, only 22.9% of organizations take five minutes or fewer to activate their plans, down 16% from last year. Less than three percent of organizations take zero minutes.
When every moment counts, what can be done? In answering this common incident management query, the article hones in on the digital technology needed to accelerate incident response in an era of complex crises, laying out the pain points associated with incident response and the capabilities needed to overcome those challenges and automate incident response.
A common pain point in incident response
So, what’s most often cited as a barrier to higher response rates? BCI researchers conclude it’s the human element.
But plan activation with no humans; how can that be?
A closer look at the data suggests that the frustration isn’t humans per se. It’s, in fact, the introduction of the human factor in the completion of routine tasks associated with an incident: tasks such as manually establishing which recovery strategies or plans and playbooks should be activated based on what’s been impacted during an incident.
Incident response automation to cut down activation time and accelerate incident response
How then to eliminate or at least attenuate the human element in this aspect of incident response? One of the most important software capabilities is incident response automation.
By definition, incident response automation uses rule-driven logic to automatically analyze and correlate data from different sources to identify and triage incidents that threaten an organization’s resilience as well as automatically complete routine, standardized tasks to expedite the incident response process and increase response efficiency and effectiveness.
What’s more, incident response automation has proven to better manage complex scenarios by considering a wider range of data inputs and conditions quicker than human actors.
Specific components within the incident response capability can also be tailored to an organization’s specific needs and requirements, thereby ensuring that the functionality adapts to unique incident scenarios and industries.
What are the other benefits of automated incident response in incident response? They include:
Faster response times
Automated incident response can significantly reduce response times in critical situations. Instead of manually assessing and initiating the appropriate response, the system can do so instantly.
Risk mitigation
As a result, automating incident response can also help reduce the risk of human delays, errors, or oversights that could lead to more severe consequences during an incident.
Greater peace of mind
Knowing that incident plans will be activated promptly and correctly can provide peace of mind to employees, executives, and other stakeholders, thereby enhancing overall confidence in the organization’s preparedness.
Incident response automation capabilities to consider
But what incident response automation capabilities to consider, specifically? For the most relevant solution areas serviced by integrated resilience management platforms, we recommend the following:
For Business Continuity and Operational Resilience, we recommend:
- Functionality that lets you define your recovery strategies and their associated plans and playbooks. These can then be associated with your Critical Products and Services and Prioritized Activities.
- A platform that during an incident, based on what you have defined as being impacted, automatically suggests the recovery strategies that need to be activated based on the impacts of the incident.
- Functionality that once your recovery strategy is activated, automatically adds associated plans and checklists to the incident for you.
For Crisis and Incident Management, we recommended:
- A Plan Categories feature that allows you to give plans a specific category.
- Based on that category and an associated workflow node, you will be able to automate any disruption scenario to pull through the correct plan automatically to the incident for you.
Finally, effective incident response is no longer a luxury but a necessity in this era of increasingly complex, faster-moving crises. And as we’ve argued in the article, the technological modality to accelerate incident response is incident response automation.
But where to turn? Providers like Noggin have harnessed the power of automation and intelligence to revolutionize how plans and playbooks are activated when disruptions strike. Don’t just take our word for it, though. Request a demo with our product specialists to learn more about how Noggin is transforming incident response through automation.
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