Three Key Takeaways From The Verdantix Buyer’s Guide For Safety Management Software

Three Key Takeaways From The Verdantix Buyer's Guide For Safety Management Software

The Verdantix Buyer's Guide: Safety Management Software (2024) was released at the end of June, covering 21 prominent vendors with offerings that support firms through their safety management processes. The Verdantix research process included a detailed questionnaire from each participating vendor, along with interview insights and findings from previous reports, Green Quadrant: EHS Software 2023 and Buyer's Guide: Safety Management Software (2021). Our 2024 buyer's guide provides potential buyers with an insight into prominent safety management solutions, focusing on key modules including audits and inspections, incident management, risk management, safety programme management, training and development, and business intelligence and analytics. Verdantix analysis reveals that vendors have continued to enhance their solutions, streamlining processes to make them easier for end-users and forming integrations between modules to help EHS functions achieve the cultural shift towards proactive safety. Taking these factors into consideration, what should prospective buyers focus on when selecting a new safety management solution?

Buyers should first evaluate the prospective solution's user interface and experience. Solutions must be easy for end-users to navigate, as this will encourage workers to engage with them regularly. Software vendors have facilitated this by providing full support through the entire workflow and implementing configurability, which enables users to modify and enhance forms, fields and workflows. Take Cority, which enables administrators to define conditions for fields, create read-only sections and alter layouts based on user inputs within its platform and mobile app.

Additionally, consolidation is a growing trend within the EHS software market. Software vendors have reduced the number of point solutions and are now integrating their modules, enabling users to house all of their safety management data in one place. This prevents issues such as silos, where information gets lost between different teams. Instead, the software presents managers and supervisors with a wealth of data in an organized manner, enabling them to conduct deep-dive investigations and draw on different components when forming trends about current safety performance. For example, Origami Risk integrated its EHS, GRC (governance, risk and compliance) and RMIS (risk management information system) offerings into one platform. This has enabled safety teams to analyse the impact of preventative measures and risk teams to evaluate the financial impact of incidents.

Finally, many EHS software vendors have started to implement emerging technologies, such as AI, enabling firms to achieve the shift towards a proactive safety culture. Instead of just reacting to an incident, organizations can implement measures that help identify potential issues early and instigate workflows that reduce their likelihood of occurring. Several software vendors have launched partnerships with AI technology firms to help achieve this. For example, COMET's Signals module leverages AI and ML to warn users about specific areas on their worksite that are susceptible to incidents, while Intelex acquired ehsAI to help break down lengthy regulatory documents into specific actionable requirements.

To read more about safety management software, see the new Verdantix Buyer's Guide: Safety Management Software 2024. To learn more about advancements and trends within the EHS space, visit our research page.