MARKET DEFINITION : MASS NOTIFICATION SYSTEM

Mass Notification System solution provides real-time information and instructions about emergency situations in an area, building, or other spaces to people, first responders, and law enforcement agencies. The information is conveyed using intelligent voice communication, along with texts, graphics, visible signals, or other concrete communication methods. The purpose of mass notification is to protect life and property by indicating the occurrence of an emergency situation and instructing masses of the necessary responses and actions to be undertaken.

MNS instructs and advises people on the likely actions they should take through concise, accurate, timely, and well-directed messages in an emergency situation. Applications such as interoperable emergency communication, business continuity, and disaster recovery, integrated public alert and warning, and business communications help management or responders or agencies take quick decisions and advise masses on due course of actions in case of emergencies or disasters. Mass Notification Solution propagates well-directed messages to reduce panic and chaos among masses. They can be used as a means to propagate messages, which can advise the rescue and relief agencies as well as law enforcement agencies on the proper due course of engagement during any emergency for the speedy recovery of assets and people. Mass Notification System is gaining popularity among enterprises, as they are serving as a vital means to ensure business continuity and disaster management.

MARKET OVERVIEW OF MASS NOTIFICATION SYSTEM SOLUTION

Mass Notification System Solution is becoming crucial due to the increasing number of disasters and emergency situations, such as natural calamities (earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, wildfires, and tornados) or other threats, including terrorist activities, public shootings, and bombings. Mass Notification System is a subset of emergency communication systems and a vital means of communication used to alert the masses before, during, or after an emergency or incident. These systems act as a key bridging component in reaching out to panicked masses and help in rescue and relief operations.

Each emergency situation requires its own unique combination of communications and warning technologies. A weather emergency such as a tornado, for instance, can typically be accommodated with a mass notification to everyone by employing horns and sirens, public address systems, emails and text messages in combination. A campus intruder incident, however, would most likely call for a more targeted response to a more defined audience. Notification devices, such as displays, speakers, sirens, speaker array systems with strobe lights, controllers, and products with a combination of these features constitute the largest percentage of Mass Notification Solution hardware revenues.

Visionary leaders are the leading market players in terms of new developments such as product launches, innovative technologies, and the adoption of growth strategies. These players have a broad product offering that caters to most of the regions globally. Visionary leaders primarily focus on acquiring the leading market position through their strong financial capabilities and their well-established brand equity. Visionary leaders are EVERBRIDGE INC, ONSOLVE, HONEYWELL, SIEMENS AG, EATON CORPORATION, BLACKBERRY LIMITED, SINGLEWIRE SOFTWARE LLC, etc

Dynamic Differentiators are established players with very strong business strategies. However, they have a weaker product portfolio compared to the visionary leaders. They generally focus only on a specific type of technology related to the product. TYCO INTEGRATED SECURITY is the only dynamic differentiator.

Innovators in the competitive leadership mapping are vendors that have demonstrated substantial product innovations as compared to their competitors. The companies have focused on product portfolios. However, they do not have very strong growth strategies for their overall business, when compared with the visionary leaders. Innovators include ATI, RAVE MOBILE SAFETY, ALERTUS TECHNOLOGIES, FEDERAL SIGNAL CORPORATION and OMNILERT LLC

Emerging companies have niche product and service offerings. Their business strategies are not as strong as that of the established vendors. The emerging vendors include the new entrants in the market, emerging in terms of product portfolio and geographic reach, and require time to gain significant traction in the market. Emerging vendors are THE MIRCOM GROUP OF COMPANIES, RAPID NOTIFY INC, CRITICAL CARE PVT LTD, ERMS, VALCOM, GUARDLY and AMERICAN SIGNAL CORPORATION.

What does Mass Notification System do?

Mass Notification Solution educates and advises people on the likely actions they should take through concise, accurate, timely, and well-directed messages in an emergency situation. Applications such as interoperable emergency communication, business continuity, and disaster recovery, integrated public alert and warning, and business communications help management or responders or agencies take quick decisions and advise masses on due course of actions in case of emergencies or disasters.

Mass Notification System solution propagates well-directed messages to reduce panic and chaos among masses. They can be used as a means to propagate messages, which can advise the rescue and relief agencies as well as law enforcement agencies on the proper due course of engagement during any emergency for the speedy recovery of assets and people. Mass Notification System is gaining popularity among enterprises, as they are serving as a vital means to ensure business continuity and disaster management.

What drives the Mass Notification Solution market?

Mass Notification Solution is becoming crucial due to the increasing number of disasters and emergency situations, such as natural calamities or other threats. Mass Notification System is a subset of emergency communication systems and a vital means of communication used to alert the masses before, during, or after an emergency or incident. These systems act as a key bridging component in reaching out to panicked masses and help in rescue and relief operations.

Each emergency situation requires its own unique combination of communications and warning technologies. A weather emergency such as a tornado, for instance, can typically be accommodated with a mass notification to everyone by employing horns and sirens, public address systems, emails and text messages in combination. A campus intruder incident, however, would most likely call for a more targeted response to a more defined audience. Notification devices, such as displays, speakers, sirens, speaker array systems with strobe lights, controllers, and products with a combination of these features constitute the largest percentage of Mass Notification Solution hardware revenues.

Also, growing concern for public safety and security, rising demand for siren electronics with highly intelligible voice and tone announcements, increasing awareness of the benefits of Mass Notification System for business continuity, growing implementation of IP-based notification devices, and increasing adoption of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend are some of the factors driving the growth of the Mass Notification solution market. Extensive demand in the energy and utilities vertical need for end-to-end crisis communication, availability of cloud-based MNS deployment, and integration of MNS with advanced technologies are expected to offer huge opportunities in this market, in the next 5 years.

In addition, growing demand for end-to-end crisis management and increasing applications in the energy and utility industry create new avenues for the growth of the Mass Notification System market. However, there are factors that may slow down the growth of the MNS market, such as inadequate regulations across verticals, lack of awareness about MNS, and single point failure of hardware infrastructure. Mass Notification Solution should be compliant with all major health and safety standards (Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), fire codes, etc.), so data security and privacy concerns are the major challenges to the growth of the market.

What is an in-building warning device?

In-building warning devices, such as indoor controller, operating consoles and indoor speakers, tone alert radio, and outdoor speakers, provide highly intelligible voice and siren tone transmission in medium power indoor and outdoor industrial communications systems. Facilities are looking for a solution that allows them to leverage existing infrastructure and integrate with existing notification technologies. Today, education facilities, corporations, healthcare facilities, warehouses, and public campuses need a unified Mass Notification System - defined as web-based personal alerting system to distribute messages simultaneously to multiple media: SMS, voice calls, desktop alerts, email notifications, and social networking sites, anywhere, anytime, on any device or service, all at once.

Who are the top 10 Mass Notification System players?

• Everbridge
• OnSolve
• Honeywell
• Siemens
• Eaton
• BlackBerry
• AtHoc
• Desktop Alert
• Blackboard
• Singlewire Software
• xMatters

Who are the Visionary Leaders in the Mass Notification Solution market?

Visionary leaders lead the Mass Notification System market in terms of new developments such as product launches, innovative technologies, and the adoption of growth strategies. These players have a broad product offering that caters to most of the regions globally. Visionary leaders primarily focus on acquiring the leading market position through their strong financial capabilities and their well-established brand equity. Visionary leaders are Everbridge INC, Onsolve, Honeywell, Siemens AG, Eaton Corporation, Blackberry Limited, Singlewire Software LLC, etc.

Who are the Innovators in the Mass Notification Solution?

Who are the Dynamic Differentiators in the Mass Notification System?

Dynamic Differentiators are established players with very strong business strategies. However, they have a weaker product portfolio compared to the visionary leaders. They generally focus only on a specific type of technology related to the product. TYCO Integrated Security is the only dynamic differentiator.

Which are the Emerging companies in the Mass Notification System solution?

Emerging companies have niche product and service offerings. Their business strategies are not as strong as that of the established vendors. The emerging vendors include the new entrants in the market, emerging in terms of product portfolio and geographic reach, and require time to gain significant traction in the market. Emerging vendors are The Mircom Group of Companies, Rapid Notify INC, Critical Care PVT LTD, ERMS, Valcom, Guardly and American Signal Corporation.

Types of Mass Notification Solution

In-Building Solutions

The In-Building Mass Notification System provides personnel and building occupants with clear, concise, and intelligible voice messages. Indoor systems provide supervised emergency voice communications with paging, background music, and voice messaging. These systems use Public Address (PA) systems, digital signage, desktop alerting, tone alert radios, posted notices, video screens, wired and wireless buttons, phone systems, and voice-enabled fire alarm panels that are instrumental in relaying information about a critical event in a swift manner. North America is the largest adopter of in-building solutions, majorly large enterprises, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), commercial buildings, and educational institutions. In-building Mass Notification Solution is a useful means of mass notification to notify personnel and requisite agencies or departments of power outages, scheduled maintenance work, mock drills, hostage situations, IT system issues, meeting and conference requests, and fire outbreaks.

In-building Mass Notification System are generally important since even short-term crisis situations can cause great damage and chaos and lead to the loss of physical assets of an enterprise. The primary responsibility of in-building systems is to minimize the damage and misalignment of business resources that may have occurred during an emergency.

These types of Mass Notification Software are primarily used by law enforcement agencies, first responders, and fire and rescue agencies. The educational institutions deploy in-building Mass Notification Solution to manage campus safety issues, announce important notifications such as class cancellations due to weather, circulate routine communications such as registrations and meeting requests, synchronize students-parents-teachers interaction, and maintain cohesion between campus law enforcement authorities and students during an event. These systems are also adopted by manufacturing industries to carry out evacuation and rescue measures in case of major industrial accidents. The in-building Mass Notification System can also be used in non-emergency situations as a surveillance measure, crowd control technology, and a company’s notification system for directives and policies.


Wide-Area Mass Notification Solution

Wide-area mass notification solutions provide clear, concise, real-time audible and visual messages that communicate how people should respond in an emergency. These systems broadcast intelligible voice messages and tones to cover large areas with crisp warnings. These solutions include outdoor public address systems, warning sirens, mobile loudspeakers, and high-power speaker array “Giant Voice” systems, outdoor emergency phones, Outdoor PA systems, large video screens/electronic signage, and radio broadcasts.

Wide-area systems may also use Distributed Recipient Mass Notification System (DRMNS), such as text messaging and emails. Wide-area notification can be of great use during emergency situations, such as floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions, where a large population spread over a wide area needs to be notified in a short span of time. Also, wide-area notifications can be used to supervise evacuation and relief tasks in affected areas and ensure effective collaboration between law enforcement agencies, first responders, and public safety institutions. These notification systems are primarily used by military and public safety departments for communication and vigil mechanisms over large areas.

The wide-area Mass Notification Solution delivers clear and intelligible voice commands for operational instructions across various platforms, including indoor public addresses, mobile units, telephone alerting, and network alerting systems. All the components activate simultaneously, saving valuable manpower and time when an emergency occurs to respond quickly and urgently.

Distributed Recipient Mass Notification System

Distributed recipient Mass Notification Software enables communication to a targeted group of individuals who may not be in contiguous areas via SMS, text, email, pop-up, social media, and push notification. These solutions are mainly used for emergency/crisis events, public alerting/emergency warnings to the public, IT service alerting, business operations notifications. The messages can be sent to multiple endpoint devices, such as phones, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), desktops, email systems, fax machines, physical security systems (such as fire panels, sirens, digital displays, sensors, and other IoT devices), facility management systems, public announcement systems and, increasingly, to social media networks.

This type of notification system is popular among mobile units providing relief works. Distributed recipient targeting can be accomplished by using a combination of attributes, such as individual, role, location, or IP address. During the publishing flow, an operator can issue a follow-up alert to users based on the notification response or block or remove individual recipients by name from a targeted distribution list set for notifications. These MNS can directly inform the masses about an emergency on their smartphones, thus creating a high degree of awareness and reducing the loss of life and property.


Trending Features of Mass Notification System

To evaluate mass notification system, the users need to make sure that the solution includes these ten crucial capabilities.

• Multi-channel notifications: One of the major reasons for MNS being strong and efficient is its capability to provide multichannel support but the solution should cover the basics, like email, SMS text and voice/phone, as well as both newer and older channels. Also, social channel support is necessary as well as some traditional channels such as fax and pager too should be supported.
• Geo-fencing: The geo-fencing feature allows users to draw a shape on top of a map, like Google Maps, and send notifications to recipients within that geographical boundary. This is especially helpful in weather situations, when the people impacted are not defined by city or state lines.
• Two-way communication: The mass notification system should not only enable to reach out to employees, but let them respond as well. Users should be able to reply to message via email or by selecting a number on the phone’s key pad. For instance, that employees confirm receipt of message by replying Yes/No.
• Global exposure: In today’s global economy, it’s important that mass notification system can send and receive messages around the world. While this may sound simple, ensuring SMS deliverability in foreign countries is not an easy task. The buyer should make sure that solution includes global coverage keeping in mind the international usage fees.
• Central control center: MNS should feature a main dashboard, where admins can log in to manage emergencies and send notifications. That dashboard should also be intuitive and easy to use, so admins aren’t trying to figure out where to click during an emergency.
• Advanced reporting: Refined reporting capabilities can display metrics like the number of sent, delivered, and received notifications. Clear reports are especially useful to choose a mass notification system with a limited number of messages.
• Phone hotline: With a hotline feature, admins can create a hotline within the emergency notification system where employees can call in to receive the latest updates. This gives users more control over how they communicate and provides a centralized hub for most recent information.
• Built-in connectors/APIs: It should be easy to integrate MNS with current employee data and HR systems. The buyer should see that solution works with current tools in existing infrastructure, like Workday, PeopleSoft, SAP, Remedy, or Active Directory.
• Mobile app: All emergency notification systems can send notifications to mobile phones. It’s important, however, that the system also has its own mobile apps for Apple and Android so that the phone can receive and send messages without any messaging charges.
• Conference connect: Mass Notification System should include support for a conference call bridge, so that during an unplanned event, users can quickly and easily join a conference call. This is useful when an organization need to get a certain group of people connected quickly. For instance, in an IT outage; the tech leads can be connected via Conference Bridge and can be made available.

• Notification Hub
• Speed
• Reporting and Analytics
• Geofencing
• Vendor Support
• Vendor Experience

• Simple User Experience: The buyers will need to search for mass notification software with an intuitive interface, reusable message templates, and simple features. 
• IPAWS Integration: Picking a mass notification system that has the ability to integrate with the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) enables the users to connect with people who are possibly at risk, even if they haven’t signed-up to get notifications.
• ESRI Mapping Capabilities: In case of a disaster the whole community needs to be notified of the possible risk, but what about local incidents? This makes it extremely important for the customers to opt for a mass notification solution that can be integrated with the Environmental System Research Institute (ESRI) mapping capabilities to target all the notifications to be sent out.
• One-Click Messaging: It is critical to choose a mass notification solution that will enable buyers to have pre-configured messages meant for single click message delivery. 
• Media Integration: It is important to be ensured that the chosen mass notification system enables buyers to link media, such as photos, maps, and videos. 
• Message Monitoring: This capability provides administrators with the insights the people who have accessed alerts, and the way the alerts have been accessed.
• Automation:It is important to search for mass notification software that provides customizable and simple message builders for pre-designed scenarios. 
• Data Management: System data failure can be disastrous for the agency as well as the community. These data breaches are generally expensive.
• Easy Implementation: Implementing a MNS solution has to be an instant, seamless and a turnkey process. The agency should be able to trust the MNS for being fully working in days and, not months.
• Routine Notification Capabilities: A mass notification system with routine message abilities enables users to restructure workflows, offer a reliable citizen experience, and increase the ROI.

Some of the noteworthy Mass Notification System use cases

Use Case #1:

Objective: To establish a secure, permission-based crisis communication within the Pentagon and with other organizations, who together needed to respond in the event of an emergency.

Challenge: Pentagon Force Protection Agency (PFPA) needed to improve the emergency notification system to reduce risk and protect the critical infrastructure

Solution: The PFPA selected AtHoc’s crisis communications platform and established a secure permission-based crisis communication among organizations so that together they can respond to whatever emerging threats arise.

Benefits: Each external organization can have its own self-service account on AtHoc Connect. Organizations can manage their own internal personnel and define who should receive alerts. All organizations on the Connect network were enabled to communicate with each other. The PFPA has full control over messages received and sent without concern for contact management.

Use Case #2:

Objective: To manage business interruptions in an insurance company

Challenge: To implement comprehensive emergency management across the organization and manage overall incidents by detecting critical incidents in advance

Solution: A leading insurance company deployed a hosted incident management and mass notification tool that offers emergency notification and communication capability to reach out to all employees quickly and efficiently in the event of an emergency or incident. With the help of an automatic alert notification system, the solution also provides a mission-control center for handling crises in the organization.

Benefits: The tool helped employees stay attentive and updated about the event of an emergency or incident.

Use Case #3:

Objective: To enhance the emergency communication system

Challenge: MillerCoors wanted to enhance its emergency communications capabilities at the brewer’s 150-acre facility, which has more than 700 employees

Solution: MillerCoors selected Eaton Corporation’s ALERiTY mass notification platform to enhance emergency communications capabilities at the brewer’s 150-acre facility.

Benefits: ALERiTY mass notification platform is not only reliable and flexible but also easy-to-use in an emergency. It has provided evacuations or lock-down notifications to MillerCoors.

Whats trending of Mass Notification Solution?

• The Mass Notification System Solution (MNS) for emergency broadcastings are evolving quickly with the growing demands of swift notification deliveries and message prioritization in the high prone earthquake and flood areas, such as Japan.
• Mass notification system are instrumental in handling business messages and providing an adequate timeframe for deploying and ensuring business continuity Thus, they are gaining popularity across enterprises for its usage due to their distinctive features of business continuity management in case of emergency and calamity.
• The market is also driven by the high-tech features offered by the MNS such as a powerful & scalable platform, which enables planning & policy enforcement. A message once created on the MNS can be shared in several formats: SMS text, email, social media, web, RSS and more.
• The increasing demand for rapid message distribution in disaster situations, development and adoption of revolutionary technologies, and the existence of significant companies in the North American region are the major factors driving the market.
• In Addition, the rising adoption of pressure-based solutions in enterprises across education and healthcare end-users is also contributing to the growth.
• Large-scale acts of violence have increased in recent years such as mass killing by the gunman in October 2017 and Valentine’s Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. These incidents have increased the focus on top mass notification system solution to avoid mass killings.
• The Boston government announced a series of investments aimed at supporting public safety for a growing city. Mass notification system are thus an important component.

Recent News of Mass Notification System

• In July 2019, Honeywell launched the Honeywell Forge Inspection Rounds to help the field workers of the oil and gas, mining, and aerospace verticals to digitalize equipment inspection programs, which increase productivity, improve accuracy, enhance public safety, and minimize unplanned asset downtime.
• In May 2019, Siemens introduced Cerberus Portal, a cloud-based online fire protection software to monitor fire systems. With this software, in case of any fire incidents, maintenance personnel receive real-time information to react promptly, inform customers, and prepare site visits.
• In May 2019, Eaton Corporation introduced Trellix, an advanced connected lighting platform designed to drive efficient, effective decision-making for building operations.
• In January 2019, Motorola Solutions acquired VaaS International Holdings, a Video analysis-as-a-Service (VaaS) company and provider of data and image analytics for vehicle location. This acquisition expanded the company’s command center software