Verizon Business today announced two enhancements to its business continuity services – an automated notification service and integration of software from a leading provider, Strohl Systems, to help businesses plan for, test and execute business continuity programs.

Verizon Notification Services can be adopted as a stand-alone product or as part of an overall business continuity program, said Barry Zipp, executive director of managed business applications for Verizon Business. The service enables an enterprise or other large organization to set up an automated notification system that can immediately convey accurate information to employees, customers or partners via multiple communication devices including wired phones, cellphones, text messages, email and facsimile.

“How well a business continuity plan works in practice is contingent on how good your critical communications capabilities are,” Zipp said. Many universities, in particular, are concerned about being able to notify students, faculty and even parents in the event of a weather-related or other disaster, he said.

Verizon’s platform includes a guarantee of availability as well as the opportunity to customize how messages are created and delivered, Zipp said. “Administrators can create scenarios that define what kind of event will trigger a response and who should get those messages.” They can then activate messages via a Web interface or a telephone, and create new messages on the fly, he said.

The system can throttle the volume of messages to fit the network, and also be customized to deliver a different kind of message depending on whether the individual answers a phone or voice mail picks up. “You may not want to leave some levels of detail on a voice mail message,” he said. The program also enables prompts for user response to messages.

Verizon is working with EnvoyWorldWide in providing the notification service.

The company chose to partner with Strohl Systems in providing business continuity planning and execution because of that company’s existing status in the industry, Zipp said.

“Our customers wanted access to tools to help them in business continuity planning, so we went into the market to find the best of breed providers,” he said. “We are integrating the Strohl Systems software into our consulting practice.”

The three components of that software are Strohl’s BIA Professional, which enables businesses to do a business-wide impact analysis to determine where they are most vulnerable and which systems need protection; LDRPS (Living Disaster Recovery Planning System), which provides a central repository to manage and update complex business continuity plan data; and Incident Manager, which provides a centralized place for tracking specific responses and notifying personnel.

“We are integrating Stroll software into our consulting practice,” Zipp said. “Business impact analysis software provides a very organized template for categorizing the things that need to be considered in a business continuity plan.. LDRPS is a software program used to help companies build and maintain their plans. It is a very logical program that follows a consistent sequence of planning tasks. And once they get a plan developed, it provides a highly organized way to test it.
Incident Manager is contingency planning software that allows the coordinators to respond to incidents in real time.”

One of the reason Verizon selected Strohl as its partner, Zipp said, is that the company’s software is highly scalable and suitable for large enterprises.

Initially, the Strohl software will be provided as part of Verizon’s business continuity plan, but, Zipp said, the company is working with Strohl to make the software available as a service.