Ed Brill, Origami Risk’s Vice President of Product Management, shared some thoughts on Origami’s pandemic response in CIR Magazine’s Risk Software Report 2021 — Market Analysis. Below we share excerpts from Ed’s interview.

Q: What impact has the COVID-19 pandemic had on the way the software is used? 

A: From a risk perspective and from the technology perspective, Origami Risk’s RMIS solutions are Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), so we were immediately ready for remote work scenarios and remote implementations, which we’ve been doing for years. 

In early 2020, we introduced our COVID-19 Solution Suite, which can collect incidents and track supplies and other pertinent information. We have the ability to quickly stand up portal-type solutions with immediate customization, for scenarios that demand data collection quickly. Last, we have integrated survey capabilities which can keep tabs on key environmental conditions within an organization and their risk profile. Since then, we have built the suite out to include vaccination tracking and outbreak tracking. 

Origami allows data to be reported via portals or the mobile app to make it easier to capture critical data in the field

Q: What have you learned during lockdown that you had not seen before and how will it change the risk software market going forward?

A: Our strongest technology advantage is adaptability. Clients and prospects are looking for the ability to adapt to quickly changing needs. We expect organizations - and our own employees - to be more open to change and recognize how we can collectively be more prepared for future disaster scenarios. As a vendor, we have also seen the benefit of being true partners with our clients. We learned how to adapt and be part of their teams as they had to reinvent their businesses.

Our best-in-class service teams are essentially extensions of our clients, and this year has created an “esprit des corps'' where we have been united in our need to deliver the right technology solutions. One other thing we learned during lockdown was that employees want to work somewhere that is making an impact, and we brought in a number of great new Origamians who are helping envision the future for our platform and service. 

We have a self-service model so clients themselves could enhance their use of the tools or work with their dedicated Origami Risk service teams to quickly pivot to new business models and risk footprints, or stand up one-off solutions as needed. One example recently underway is a healthcare provider considering a ‘side effect tracker’ of employees who have received the COVID-19 vaccination. — Ed Brill, 2021 CIR Risk Software Report

Q: Is it easier now than it was before the pandemic to convey the value of risk software?

A: Some aspects of the solution have become clearly important to customers now where they might not have been before. For example, our business continuity tools in our Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) solution are highly important to planning for future disruptions. Having a centralized platform for capturing and tracking and reporting becomes more important when users can no longer walk down the hall to ask for some information from the resident resource. Last, being able to stand up new solutions quickly that are already configured to client specifications is key. For example, we have a GIS map-based visualization tool, which had only been used by a small number of clients before the pandemic. We have tripled the number of GIS map implementations in our tool versus two years ago, and almost all of that growth came after our first COVID-19 webinar. We have since hosted a second webinar covering how organizations can tackle COVID-19 outbreak reporting and vaccination tracking.

Example of a publicly available dataset (social vulnerability index) being visualized in Origami. Users can map public datasets, organizational data, or combinations of each.

Q: Have you observed any other pertinent developments in this space?

A: Referring back to the GIS map example above, we now know that reporting, business intelligence, and visualizations are a key way to consume risk information. We are thinking more broadly around opportunities to integrate and provide insights from the data that we already capture. It is exciting to think about how we can move to an even more robust position with our clients of providing them the tools they need to manage their business risk and priorities going forward.

Read more from Ed Brill’s interview with CIR Magazine in the 2021 Risk Software Report, which includes market analysis, reviews of product features for the most popular solutions, and more.