Today every organization must be prepared to manage critical events, including operational disruptions, infrastructure outages, natural disasters, and pandemics. Organizations are not only challenged to maintain continuity of operations during such events, but to also ensure the care and safety of their employees. Those tasked with managing these events–or those whose job functions take them into dangerous settings–require tools that help them be prepared for all scenarios.

BlackBerry and Samsung, both veterans of keeping critical information flowing and secure, have partnered to address these needs by delivering the BlackBerry® comprehensive CEM (Critical Event Management) solution using rugged Samsung Galaxy® devices. The joint offering is optimized for first responders and front-line workers.

Here are just a few examples of the industry sectors and use cases that can benefit from this unique partnership:

• Public Safety – Front-line police officers can trigger and respond to emergency alerts with a simple press of the key on the device. This can be particularly useful for those working in covert operations, who can act discreetly to minimize drawing attention to themselves.
  
  
• Healthcare – With BlackBerry critical event management on their rugged Samsung Galaxy devices, homecare nurses are more productive with seamless check-in and check-outs for visits. They can also stay safe by easily triggering an SOS if they find themselves in a dangerous situation.
  
  
• Utilities – Field employees can be notified of critical events on their rugged Samsung Galaxy device, and use it to collect data from the BlackBerry CEM solution or respond to alerts while working in the harshest conditions–all thanks to military-grade standards for durability.

Why BlackBerry?

BlackBerry® Alert and BlackBerry® AtHoc® are market-leading CEM platforms designed to help enterprise organizations prepare for and recover from disruptive events. Serving the largest global enterprises and 75% of the U.S. Federal government, with some divisions for more than 20 years, the solutions meet the most stringent requirements for security, availability, and privacy, as well as enterprise interconnectivity and scalability. Building on the experience BlackBerry has in crisis management, secure communications, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation, BlackBerry Alert and BlackBerry AtHoc help organizations improve decision-making and reduce response time. The BlackBerry CEM platform is designed to address the needs of government and enterprise:

• BlackBerry AtHoc for government and regulated industries helps notify and protect the public and government agency employees.
  
  
• BlackBerry Alert for commercial enterprises helps keep your business running and your people safe.

Key features include the following:

• Mass and Targeted Alerting – In addition to email, phone, text, and mobile notifications, BlackBerry Alert and BlackBerry AtHoc connect to a full range of mass communication tools, including two-way radios, loudspeakers, digital displays, fire panels, emergency stop buttons, badging systems, as well as social media.
  
  
• Personnel Accountability – Account for personnel quickly and easily, with real-time visibility into their safety and status.
  
  
• Critical Information Collection – Access geo-tagged rich media, real-time location tracking, and field reporting from the front line. If they’re in harm’s way, workers can easily send a distress signal to summon help.
  
  
• Connect with Your External Ecosystem – Communicate with teams outside your organization, using up-to-date contact and location information to ensure responses are coordinated, and crucial information flows to where it’s most needed.
  
  
• Situation Response – Identify risks, coordinate responses, and mobilize staff during administrative or logistical events, supply chain disruptions or health incidents. 

Why Samsung?

The Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro rugged smartphone is designed for the most demanding environments and is as responsive and reliable in harsh conditions as it is in the office.

The Galaxy XCover Pro has earned IP68* and MIL-STD810G** certifications, meaning it’s ideally suited to perform in tough conditions, such as extreme temperatures, moisture, varying altitudes, shocks and vibrations.  

BlackBerry and Samsung: Better Together

BlackBerry has enjoyed a longstanding partnership with Samsung to deliver secure end-to-end mobility solutions trusted by enterprises and governments around the world, through BlackBerry® UEM (unified endpoint management) and the capabilities of Samsung Knox® mobile device security. The two organizations have collaborated to develop optimized solutions that extend military-grade security to an extensive portfolio of mobile devices. The next chapter in this partnership moves beyond the security collaboration story by optimizing BlackBerry Alert and BlackBerry AtHoc on Samsung’s ruggedized Galaxy smartphones to enhance the productivity of front-line workers.

BlackBerry Alert and BlackBerry AtHoc will improve communications and productivity by utilizing two programmable keys on the Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro. With a single click, front-line workers can easily access essential features critical to their job and safety. The platforms also leverage device management capabilities through Samsung Knox, to allow IT managers to monitor and configure application features on behalf of front-line workers, simplifying deployment and support.

Paired with BlackBerry CEM, the Galaxy XCover Pro is an important new tool for protecting and empowering front-line workers, as well as those tasked with managing critical events in industries where employees are often placed in harm’s way.

Darren Spurgeon, Business Change Manager for Greater Manchester Police, commented, “With BlackBerry AtHoc, the user experience of cascading reliable incident communications has been significantly improved. A single operator is now able to notify all key responders in less than 10 minutes, at the click of a button. Collaborations such as this help us in getting time-critical information to the mobile devices carried by officers, reliably and securely, further supporting the work of emergency response services.”

“For more than a decade, Samsung has provided businesses with a defense-grade device security and management platform through Samsung Knox, to protect classified and confidential information and provide productivity-based front-line use cases through advanced hardware-level controls,” said James Pak, Vice President and Head of B2B Partnerships at Mobile Communications Business, Samsung Electronics. “The XCover Pro’s ability to withstand the most severe conditions, paired with integration and new support for BlackBerry Alert and AtHoc, ensures employee safety and offers a secure and reliable platform for critical event management, making it the ideal device for front-line workers.”

Through this partnership, frontline workers can take advantage of a comprehensive portfolio of Samsung devices and BlackBerry applications optimized for these devices, while CIOs are assured their environment is scalable, reliable, and protected from all types of threats. In addition to critical event management, BlackBerry’s portfolio of Samsung solutions includes endpoint management, threat defence, secure connectivity, and encrypted voice communications.

Safety First

Critical events are not rare, and unfortunately, it often takes a potentially dangerous incident to prompt an organization to develop plans and processes that will lessen the impact of future events. Smart organizations proactively implement CEM processes for planning, responding, and recovering from incidents, as well as for ensuring employee wellness. Together, BlackBerry and Samsung have created a secure end-to-end platform for managing critical events and keeping workers safe, even in the most demanding environments.

Learn more

Learn more about critical event management from BlackBerry. Learn more about Knox security at SamsungKnox.com/Security.

Steve Clarey is the Alliances and Business Development Director for BlackBerry. This blog has been shared with Samsung by BlackBerry.