Americans are constantly reminded of all the risks that we face today: hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters; terrorism; man-made disasters, such as hazardous materials accidents; and epidemics and pandemics.
Governments at all levels have a two-fold mission—to serve and to protect:
- To serve constituents with governmental services
- To protect constituents during times of emergencies and disasters
What does it take for governments to meet the disaster readiness challenge? At the heart of effective disaster preparedness and response is a jurisdiction-wide approach that integrates emergency actions across the domains of emergency management, homeland security, and continuity of operations (COOP) and continuity of government (COG).
Each of these domains brings both capabilities and equities that are critical to a successful recovery—clearly partnership is essential for true readiness, and even more during periods of tightening budgets.
The complexity of potential disasters we face today requires government-wide planning and integrated solutions. Yet recent evaluations of readiness programs from the local to the federal level point out that although most jurisdictions have basic response capabilities, few are able to properly address complex disasters—in effect, they have reached a readiness plateau and are short of where they need to be.
No Silver Bullets: The Point Solution Dilemma
Information technology (IT) plays an essential role in facilitating planning and policy activities and in expediting emergency actions across domains.
Too many IT vendors focus on specific technological solutions that generally address only a small part of the overall challenge—a “point solution.” Unfortunately, these point solutions leave numerous gaps where significant problems can develop and undermine even the most well planned strategy.
IT delivers the backbone for robust emergency readiness and response. When implemented thoroughly and as part of an enterprise-wide approach to readiness—not as a motley mix of disparate point solutions—IT provides the key to fully leveraging your resources to meet the current spectrum of threats.
CIBER Helps You Build True Readiness
Government entities have much to accomplish without having to take on the additional responsibilities of coordinating organizational readiness, as well as policies and IT among various agencies. This is where CIBER can help.
For more than 30 years, CIBER has helped local, state, and federal governments solve business challenges using IT. In fact, we have helped agencies in all 50 U.S. states—more than 600 government agencies—with their IT challenges. We treat each engagement as a relationship, not a transaction, so you can be sure we’re available whenever you need us to solve the hardest challenges.
CIBER’s vendor-agnostic stance means we are focused on understanding your organization’s specific needs and then developing a solution for those needs. Our objective is to help you achieve your goals, not promote a particular product from a particular vendor. We take an enterprise-wide capabilities-based approach to your challenges so we can cure the root cause of the problem, not just provide a single point solution to treat a single symptom.
With more than 8,000 employees in 18 countries worldwide, CIBER has the breadth and depth of resources to tackle your toughest problems. Yet with 60 offices in the U.S., you can rest assured there is an office near you to provide local accountability.
Our emergency management, business continuity, disaster recovery, and information security experts can help your organization effectively and efficiently prepare for the full range of threats your jurisdiction faces. We help you adopt enterprise-wide planning and implementation of readiness programs, starting with the capabilities-based approach used by DHS, and upon which federal readiness grants are predicated.
CIBER offers a range of services that can precisely be tailored to each customer’s specific needs:
Overall Program Assessment
- Integrated EM, HS, and COOP/COG
- NIMS implementation and compliance
- Capability gaps
- Single points of failure
Process Design
- IT support for emergency operations
- Emergency operations center functionality
- Situational awareness
- Decision support
- Readiness metrics
Information Security
- Data and transmission security
- Physical security
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
- COOP and COG
- Offsite backup
Planning Services
- Strategic planning
- Capabilities-based planning
- Grant application and management
IT Integration and Mapping
- Emergency notification and public warning
- Crisis information management
- Resource management
- Business process management
- GIS applications
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery P... (936KB)
