Meet the sponsor: Room Alert
Can you tell us a bit about yourself/your organization?
We create solutions that protect people, property, and productivity to provide Peace of Mind. AVTECH Software was founded in 1988 to help monitor computer networks and facilities to help warn staff of environmental issues that could potentially cause downtime such as extreme high or low temperatures, humidity & heat index concerns, unexpected power loss, water leaks or flood conditions, smoke, motion and more. Our Room Alert platform consists of monitors, sensors, and software that form a comprehensive suite of products that helps any organization prevent environmental-related downtime. Room Alert is currently used in 187 of 196 countries by organizations ranging from thousands of small businesses to one of the world’s largest retailers, over 80% of the Fortune 1000, the United Nations, every branch of the US military, and many state and local governments.
What motivated you to become a BCI Corporate Sponsor?
The BCI’s mission of educating organizations how to protect themselves with strong business continuity planning resonates strongly with us – allowing businesses to continue operating in a wide variety of circumstances is what helped found our own company! We also wish to educate organizations about the various types of circumstances and situations that could negatively impact them. Unfortunately, we’ve found that most organizations will approach us after they’ve already experienced a problem, and potentially have lost thousands of dollars in revenue and productivity. Perhaps an HVAC unit failed and their server room heat spiked, causing server failure, data loss, and customer service interruption. Or an unexpected construction accident outside of their building caused pipes to leak into their warehouse, causing catastrophic damage to their inventory. They want to ensure that type of situation will never happen again, and they rely on Room Alert and our expertise as part of their business continuity plan going forward.
Can you share some of the values and goals of your organization?
AVTECH has three core values that guide everything we do. Firstly, we value honesty and integrity, and are committed to continuous personal and professional improvement. We always want to be open and honest with each other, our customers, and all our partners so we can continually learn and grow as an organization. Secondly, we affirm that the work we do helps to facilitate a positive and fulfilling life both inside and outside of work. We want our employees to have a solid work/life balance, while giving peace of mind to our customers so they can concentrate on their family and friends outside of work hours, knowing our products are monitoring their facilities. Lastly, we respect different ideas and perspectives and encourage diversity of thought. We recognize that everyone on our team has different backgrounds, skills, and perspectives, and we want all our team members to feel empowered to use those skills and backgrounds to help each other, and our customers.
Our goal is to help educate organizations around the world about the causes of disruption that they don’t often think about. Too often, it’s cybersecurity and network resilience that are focused on, when 30% of all business disruptions are caused by environmental factors. That’s where Room Alert can help.
What do you hope to achieve through BCI Corporate Sponsorship?
As noted earlier, too many organizations discover Room Alert and proactive environment monitoring after they’ve had a costly incident. At that point, revenue has already been lost, productivity has been impacted, and in many instances, customer confidence may have been lost. Our hope is that by working with BCI, we can help organizations understand that environment monitoring should be a part of every single business continuity plan. You wouldn’t think of running a company without a network firewall, antivirus software, and ongoing cybersecurity training; we want organizations to understand that monitoring temperature, humidity, heat index, power status, water leaks, and more are just as important to ensuring the ability to conduct uninterrupted business.
Can you share a success story that your company is particularly proud of?
While our Room Alert monitors, sensors, and accessories are used in a wide range of industries for many applications, IT facilities tends to be our most popular customer industry. Recently we heard from a customer with three data center and server room locations in India that had installed Room Alert in all their facilities. Prior to Room Alert, they were manually tracking temperature trends, along with any power outages. This was not an ideal situation, as they needed eyes on their mission-critical equipment at all times, and they were not able to properly address any issues that arose during their off-hours.
After installing Room Alert, their entire support team was able to receive alerts and notifications no matter where they were, at any time using our Room Alert Account online dashboard as well as our Room Alert mobile app. This allowed them to have a much better understanding of the conditions in their data centers and server rooms. One of the accessories they installed is our Light Tower w/Audio, which they mounted outside of their data centers and provides both visual as well as audio notification of any events that Room Alert detects.
This customer let us know that Room Alert proved itself within days of installation by notifying them of potentially dangerous fluctuations in temperature and humidity in their data centers and server rooms. With historical reporting available, they are now able to predict almost three-quarters of potential outage-causing situations before they happen simply by monitoring temperature and humidity trends in the facilities that they are monitoring.
What kind of initiatives does your company have in place that the audience should be aware of?
Right now, heat stress and heat illness in the workplace are incredibly important, given the current climate around the world. Ongoing heat waves, especially in regions that traditionally have not suffered through them, have been impacting organizations in many ways. In the United States, OSHA has been implementing new rules to help protect employees against heat-related illnesses and stress. We’ve seen those efforts mirrored by the respective protection agencies in Canada, the UK and the EU. We’ve been putting massive emphasis on Room Alert’s ability to easily monitor conditions and alert organizations if their facilities are approaching ranges that could be harmful to their staff. Not only can it alert to dangerous heat and heat index conditions, Room Alert can also store historical data should an incident occur. Room Alert can help show that your organization was properly monitoring their facility and alerting staff when conditions might impact their health. Our Room Alert Account dashboard has built-in overlays that can immediately set up alerts and reports with the click of a button to help prevent heat stress or illness.
How can BCI community connect with your company via the BCI Corporate Sponsorship?
We welcome any questions about Room Alert and ensuring proactive environment monitoring is part of everyone’s business continuity plan. Our websites at AVTECH.com and RoomAlert.co.uk offer a wealth of information about business continuity, and Room Alert’s role in helping to protect people, property, and productivity to provide peace of mind. Our team is eager to share as much educational information as possible to help arm the BNI community with the knowledge they need to protect themselves against environmental-related outages.
Is there anything else you would like the BCI community to know about your organization or your products/services?
Room Alert can be found in over 185 countries helping to protect organizations. With distribution facilities in the US and Ireland, along with an incredible network of Room Alert Resellers and partners, any organization can have Room Alert at their doorstep in a matter of just a few days if needed, if not sooner. Our products are designed to be installed and used by nearly anyone, so IT support or electricians are almost never needed for a first-time user. You can have Room Alert set up and monitoring the factors you wish in just a few minutes, and our sensor catalog can monitor nearly every factor you could think of that’s important to you. We welcome the opportunity to answer questions and work with the BCI community to help them stay protected, safe, and productive.
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