When deploying new technology, it’s essential to have a deep understanding of the organizational flow and operational circumstances in which the technology will be used. Nowhere is this more true than in emergency and public safety situations, where extra seconds in response time can mean the difference between a life saved or lost.

Instant, secure, and reliable voice communications remain at the core of mission-critical communications. Jolly and Jo highlighted the importance of Motorola Solutions’ collaboration with its customers in designing and deploying solutions that save more lives.

Jo: U.S. regulators estimate that as many as 10,000 lives could be saved every year by reducing 911 response times by just one minute. We’re always working with our customers to guarantee that everyone, everywhere is safer by making sure people stay connected and can communicate clearly no matter how challenging the circumstances are. But we wouldn’t be able to do this without drawing on the expertise of our customers.

Jolly: Motorola Solutions’ edge is their willingness to invest time with customers in different domains, understanding their unique needs, then researching and developing the most useful solutions. Technology has to be designed for the specific country, conditions in the field, and how it’s actually used by the people who rely on it to do their job. Being able to communicate by voice is really important for first responders. For example, 70% of police officers prefer to request license plate checks over the radio.

I’ll give you another example. After doing research, Hong Kong Police saw the need for an emergency button. When officers found themselves in emergency situations where they urgently needed assistance, all they had to do was press a button and a hot microphone would be turned on. That way, the officer didn’t need to keep pressing the radio button in order to be heard. Motorola Solutions designed this feature based on research into our organizational structure and operations. This function – an emergency button that activated a minute-long hot mic – was then shared with other public safety customers.

This kind of co-development ensures that Motorola Solutions’ R&D efforts are invested in something they know their customers need. At the same time, it allows customers to have their needs met even when that solution doesn’t yet exist on the market.

Unlike public networks, Motorola Solutions designs for very high standards of reliability, resilience, and recovery. For Hong Kong’s electricity providers, their electricity supply are designed to be 99.999% reliable, meaning that unexpected outages will not exceed 5.26 minutes per year. For several years, Hong Kong Electric even achieved 99.9999% reliability with no more than 31.56 seconds of unexpected downtime. In the rare instance when there is an outage, the systems are designed to be resilient and can be brought back online with incredible speed. And now, there’s even self-healing software that speeds up diagnostics to pinpoint issues, which it can then self-correct.