Global AlertLink Software was specially developed for issues and crisis management

May 4, 2003

CRISIS MODE - FOCUSING ON THE IMPORTANCE OF INFORATION DURING EMERGENCIES, CHARLES RYAN ASSOCIATES DEVELOPS WEB-BASED SOLUTION



(left) Kevin Hall, president of Rev Interactive, and Bret L. Chandler, executive vice president and chief financial officer at Charles Ryan Associates, display the Global AlertLink software program.

When it comes to crisis management work for corporate clients, Charles Ryan Associates has handled just about every type of scenario you could imagine.

The Charleston advertising and public relations company advises some of the largest corporations in the country on how to respond "proactively" to major crises. In a nutshell, it's damage control: how to keep a bad situation from spinning completely out of control.

The firm now is eyeing new opportunities thanks to the Internet, an urgent need for corporate executives to have accurate information at their fingertips and an emerging set of homeland security issues.

It's building this effort around its Web-based Global AlertLink software program.

"You could think of us as a cnn.com that is internal to the company," said Kevin Hall, president of Rev Interactive, a division of Charles Ryan that developed the program. "The idea is to pull together all the information we have on a developing situation and get it out immediately."

Global AlertLink has between 50 and 60 clients who pay between $30,000 and $350,000 for the package. The price varies depending upon the size of the client and its needs.

Big corporations in the automotive, pharmaceutical, telecommunications, health care and energy industries are the main clients to date.

But government agencies are interested, too. Rev Interactive has met with officials at the Department of Homeland Security.

Hall sees "substantial" potential for new business on the homeland security front. "We're making inroads there," he said.

The firm also has made presentations on how to use technology to local government units, including the Kanawha Putnam Emergency Planning Committee, citing the need for local law enforcement and rescue squads to coordinate communications in times of crisis.

"It's an unique application of technology," Hall said. "We based it on work our PR unit has been doing for clients since 1984."

It's appears to have a solid market niche. "There's nothing else like it," Hall asserted.

"In terms of linking both the operations side and the public perceptions side, we haven't found anything that is positioned in the same space we're in," said Bret L. Chandler, executive vice president and chief financial officer at CRA.

As Hall and Chandler explained it, there's a strong need among corporate executives to have accurate information at their fingertips in the midst of a crisis.

"When a crisis hits, or when an issue hits, they need to have high-level summary information that they can use and act on immediately," Hall said. "They need to know what's going on in the media. They need to know what's going on in the [government] agencies and what's going on in the legislatures."

That's what Global AlertLink provides.

"The other thing that separates us is how easy it is to use," Hall noted. When a crisis hits, it will be managers, not technology specialists, who need to use the software. "This is not software you've got to learn," he said.

Until recently, many companies put their crisis plans on paper and stored them away in three-ring binder notebooks.

"That sets off a red alert for us," Hall said. "That kind of idea is outdated. It really spurred us to make the whole process electronic."

Rev Interactive was working on the system before 9/11, he said. It took about a year to create the program and it was unveiled in November 2001.

To illustrate how it works, Hall outlined a scenario involving a big explosion at a plant. "When that happens, you click a button and an e-mail is sent to the crisis teams within that company and to some outside as well, legal counsel, for example."

From that point onward, all key executives regularly check back to the site for planning, process to follow, information updates and the like.

The Web site contains an entire event plan, crisis contacts, media contacts, community contacts and an extensive "knowledge" base.

"When you log in, you see what you need to do," Hall said. In effect, it's a master plan for handling the crisis.

"The whole goal is to take a much more proactive stance rather than sit back and be overwhelmed by events," he said.

Though the software package is internal to the company, there's a public version, too. Click another button and e-mail alerts are sent to the media, investors and public officials.

In the middle of a crisis, companies don't use their Web sites effectively, Hall noted. "They are a day, two days, three days late in getting crucial information up."

"One client told us 80 percent of his time is spent answering simple questions ... how big are you? Where are your other plants? The idea is to get something out there immediately" that addresses these and many other questions.

With Global AlertLink, the answers are only a click away.