Why fire service innovation is all about listening
Over the last 12 months, our fire service customers have benefitted from faster upgrades, more responsive support and a range of product enhancements. One year on from our acquisition of SSS Public Safety, we explain how a stronger focus on customer engagement is accelerating innovation and shaping partnerships that are fit for the future.
Strategic investment in public safety
We completed our acquisition of SSS Public Safety in August 2023, making NEC Software Solutions the market leader in fire service technology and strengthening our emergency services portfolio.
Our own acquisition by NEC Corporation five years ago triggered heavy investment in our public safety products and infrastructure, enabling cloud-based deployment and revealing the possibilities of AI through their R&D Labs. We’ve now extended this technological investment to our fire service customers.
Targeted improvements to customer service
Fire services rely on quick thinking, a rapid response and accurate data, and these attributes guide our approach to customer service. Over the last year, our customers have benefitted from our increased focus on customer success. They can now access product roadmaps that set out clear timescales for enhancements, and through our customer experience team we are deploying a dedicated portal for each customer that enables closer collaboration with us and with other fire services. Through free product workshops, they can check they’re getting the maximum benefit from the software. Our customer experience team has been visiting FRSs to gain a better understanding of how they are using our products and identifying improvement opportunities for the future, and good practice to share more widely.
This investment in a holistic customer experience has, in turn, informed our development approach. It gives our product team a deeper insight into user needs so that they can help us to create more sustainable, seamless solutions.
Retaining skills and building resilience
Infrastructure investment has also been key to our success. It gives our highly skilled team, which has decades of experience supporting fire services, a solid platform for innovation.
For example, our UK-based data centres are purpose-built to hold sensitive data securely. This not only enables more cost-effective delivery but also keeps our customers fully focused on the right response as we can now provide a fully managed service, taking on the administration and management of both the software and hardware environment. And the use of our Safety Deployment Toolkit to support quality control and to streamline implementation during upgrades has brought installation times down to just two hours in the majority of instances. These aspects are already proving invaluable as we onboard new customers.
Welcoming new fire service customers
We’ve recently been awarded a six-year contract with the Network Fire Service Partnership (NSFP), which now includes a fourth service; Kent Fire & Rescue. This follows new contracts for hosted Command, Control and Integrated Communication Systems at Humberside Fire Service and Lincolnshire Fire Service.
This month, we also started the phased deployment of a fully managed, national system for the Irish Fire Service. By combining multichannel communications, live situational awareness and multi-agency capabilities for command and control, we’ll be helping staff in three regional hubs to respond faster right across the Republic of Ireland.
Accelerating innovation for what lies ahead
In the last 12 months, we’ve got closer to our customers, improved product useability for operators and administrators, and delivered new enhancements faster than ever. Like a single button that turns a caller’s smartphone into a live video that gets stored in the right place automatically. Or AI-enabled translation services currently in development, that enable caller and operator to understand each other faster than ever before.
Customer-focused innovation remains at the heart of our plans as we look to the future. We’re investing in enhancements that will transform risk management and connect mobile resources seamlessly to control rooms. We’ll also continue to invest in incremental improvements that reflect customer priorities and feel seamless to users.
Today, fire and rescue services are under enormous pressure to protect the public through the right response. By listening carefully to our customers and investing in our people, infrastructure and technology, we’re ready to help them.
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