SENTURY SOFTWARE

Case Study : University of Toronto

Background

The University of Toronto, a large, world class institution located in Toronto, Canada, requires in its Crisis Management Policy that all faculties, divisions, and facilities prepare appropriate emergency and business continuity plans. This responsibility also extends to departments, which are to assess their individual planning and emergency resource requirements.

Challenge

The University has 11 Colleges, 16 Faculties, and approximately 900 Departments spread throughout 200 academic buildings. The omplexity of the University’s geographical and organizational structure is not suited to a “top-down” approach to emergency management, but requires an innovative system that enables the University rapidly to achieve its policy and comply with all applicable standards. The University wished to avoid multiple products and the corresponding multiple costs of implementation, training, maintenance, and hosting.

Solution

The University researched a large number of products available on the market, and met with peers from the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA) in an effort to identify a product or suite of products that would provide a comprehensive, compliance-based emergency management system.

The University had previously contracted Challenging Risk to develop innovative management solutions and sought a proposal to create an integrated software solution. Challenging Risk had conducted extensive research and created an emergency management model specifically for universities and colleges. Challenging Risk used their model to develop Sentury software emergency management software for the University. The University of Toronto identified Challenging Risk as having both met and exceeded its stringent requirements. Due to the uniqueness and effectiveness of their software, Challenging Risk was contracted sole-source.