Thales Group Takes a Proactive Approach to Employee Safety With AlertMedia
SafetyImproves safety outcomes by allowing the organization to proactively monitor for and react faster to nearby threats.- VisibilityProvides 24/7 situational awareness around emerging threats that could impact Thales’ facilities and employees.
- ReliabilityEnsures Thales can always reach its dispersed, diverse workforce with multichannel communication capabilities.
- TrustGives employees and customers alike confidence that the organization can respond quickly during critical events.
- IndustryManufacturing
- Locations50
- Employees7,000
- ProductsEmergency Communication Software, Global Threat Intelligence
- Primary UsesEmergency, Business Continuity, Operations, Inclement Weather
Thales Continuously Monitors Threats to Protect Its People and Facilities
Founded in 2000 and headquartered in France, Thales Group is a multinational company that designs and builds electrical systems. Thales helps create a safer world by providing its customers in the aerospace, defense, transportation, and security markets the tools and services they need to perform mission-critical tasks.
With a large, dispersed workforce and a wide variety of working environments, Thales needed a fast, reliable way to communicate with employees about emerging threats. After previously using another mass notification system, Thales turned to AlertMedia when its prior platform fell short of expectations during a hurricane. With AlertMedia’s emergency communication solution and integrated global threat intelligence, Thales can now proactively monitor for potential threats that may impact its 7,000 employees across North America. From severe weather to wildfires to acts of violence, Thales can keep employees safe and operations running, no matter what type of critical event it may encounter.
Communicating With a Large, Diverse, and Dispersed Workforce
With thousands of employees and over 50 sites across the U.S. and Canada, employee communication can be challenging at Thales Group. And with multiple lines of business—from commercial aviation to cybersecurity to defense contracting—Thales’ high diversity of working environments only adds to that challenge.
“Our employees are spread across many different working environments, from sales offices to manufacturing facilities,” says Judy Weber, Vice President of Operations and Ambition Boost at Thales Group. “Not only does this mean we face a greater range of threats, but it also makes communication more challenging. Reaching desk-based office workers requires a different approach than communicating with manufacturing workers who may not have regular access to email, for example.”
As an organization that helps protect its own clients against potential cyber threats, Thales has long understood the importance of proactive threat monitoring and communication. Prior to AlertMedia, Thales had implemented a different emergency communication solution in order to communicate with all its employees across North America. However, during a severe weather incident, the platform failed to perform as expected. Thales was unable to appropriately segment its audience or verify message receipt in the midst of the emergency. As a result, Thales began searching for a platform that could reliably meet its standards.
Global Threat Intelligence Keeps the Organization a Step Ahead
Thales now uses AlertMedia’s emergency communication software and integrated threat intelligence solution to detect, monitor, and notify employees of potential threats that may impact them. Every site has its own local administrator who receives AlertMedia’s analyst-vetted threat notifications, determines which warrant employee attention, and then pushes out relevant alerts to individuals and teams that need the information.
“AlertMedia’s threat intelligence functionality enables us to take a proactive approach to health and safety by automatically notifying our administrators of any potential threats that may impact employees.”
“AlertMedia’s threat intelligence functionality enables us to take a proactive approach to health and safety by automatically notifying our administrators of any potential threats that may impact employees,” says Weber. “Using AlertMedia’s multichannel communication capabilities, our administrators can then send out alerts via email, phone, text, and the mobile app to ensure employees are aware and prepared to act accordingly.”
AlertMedia’s full-featured mobile app also has proven invaluable for the organization’s site leaders and those responsible for communicating with employees about local threats. “You never know when a critical event is going to happen, and you’re not always going to be in front of your laptop when it does,” says Weber. “AlertMedia’s mobile app accelerates how quickly we can assess threat warnings and push them out to employees.”
Other features that have been particularly valuable to Thales include the ability to segment people into groups based on common characteristics, like their department or supervisor, as well as the platform’s conference call functionality.
One group, in particular, that has seen the benefits of these features is Thales’ commercial aviation services business. Providing in-flight Wi-Fi and entertainment systems found on aircraft, Thales’ commercial aviation services business has strict service-level agreements (SLAs) with airlines regarding service uptime and response times. While Thales’ Global Security Operations Center (GSOC) monitors for any threats to these onboard systems, the GSOC team has adopted AlertMedia as its communication platform of choice to rapidly communicate about identified threats. Using dynamic groups set up in AlertMedia, the team can quickly send out department-wide alerts to inform colleagues about incidents and unplanned disruptions. Similarly, AlertMedia’s conference call functionality enables key stakeholders to connect by phone in seconds to quickly align on response strategies.
Achieving 24/7 Situational Awareness to Avoid Being Caught Off Guard
By automating and operationalizing threat intelligence, Thales can ensure it’s always ready to protect its people and business—anytime and anywhere. Trusted intelligence summaries on emerging events make it easy for local site leaders to notify affected employees the minute a relevant threat is identified. With AlertMedia, Thales can identify and verify incidents faster, analyze the business impact, and automatically activate a response across its organization with real-time alerts.
“It would be impossible to manually monitor for all the potential threats that could impact every one of our sites,” says Weber. “AlertMedia takes the legwork out of monitoring and vetting relevant threat signals—so we can focus on preparing for any threats, rather than reacting to them.”
AlertMedia’s integrated emergency communication and threat intelligence capabilities enable Thales to achieve 24/7 situational awareness and turn this intel into action. With the ability to activate a response in seconds from any device and immediately reach all of its employees, Thales can accelerate response times during critical events—a key driver of better safety outcomes.
“Getting real-time alerts when an incident happens near one of our sites and seeing exactly who might be impacted allows us to act faster in any situation,” says Weber. “AlertMedia has allowed us to enhance employee safety, improve business continuity, and give our employees peace of mind knowing that we are always looking out for them.”
Developing a Mature Safety Culture to Optimize Operations
With AlertMedia’s emergency communication and threat intelligence solutions, Thales has further enhanced its emergency preparedness and response capabilities. Through a more proactive approach to ensuring employee health, safety, and well-being, Thales is well equipped to continue improving safety outcomes and business continuity for years to come.
“Being able to quickly communicate with employees during an emergency is an enormous step toward improving workplace safety. But that’s only part of the puzzle—you also need to be able to identify potential threats before they actually affect your organization,” says Weber. “The clearest sign of a mature safety culture is the ability to be proactive rather than reactive—and that’s exactly what AlertMedia helps us achieve.”
