U.S. State and Local Emergency Response C3 Market Overview

This Frost & Sullivan research service titled U.S. State and Local Emergency Response C3 Market Overview provides a total market spending forecast, industry challenges and trends, and program overviews by state for command, control, and communications (C3).

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Market Overview

Affordable, Interoperable, and Integrated Solutions Key to Growth in the State and Local Emergency Response Markets

The economic decline has put the brakes on spending on emergency response C3, compelling service providers to offer a superior value proposition. As state and local end users have become more discerning while making procurement decisions, affordability and interoperability are the keys to winning business in the short term. Market participants cannot hope for a reprieve unless they provide advanced systems that can either decrease current costs or significantly increase operational efficiencies. The future end-user spending on emergency response C3 is tied to government grant funding. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has granted more than $25 billion to the state, local, and tribal governments since 2002. Of this, over $1 billion has been specific to C3. Since late 2007, the state, local and tribal governments have publicly announced in excess of 240 potential investments in emergency response C3, for which they have already earmarked over $1 billion.

Nevertheless, despite these generous funds and recent as well as earlier investments, many states are still using legacy technology to achieve total situational awareness because the costs of deploying and maintaining advanced C3 systems can be overwhelming for many emergency-response agencies. As the existing technologies are grossly inadequate to achieve the desired level of awareness, many emergency response personnel do not have access to advanced C3. "The state and local market is also extremely diverse and no single product or solution is able to satisfy all customers, making product development and marketing very challenging," says the analyst of this research. "In attempting to develop products to meet these needs, market participants must understand that no two customers are alike at the state and local level and a targeted and a dedicated approach is necessary to succeed."

Apart from new programs to fulfill unmet end-user needs, leveraging technology that meets the appropriate needs and cost requirements is the most reliable way to improve market penetration. Leveraging IP technology and commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions will be the best move in this market. "Using IP and COTS-based solutions will allow vendors to approach this market at a price point that is more acceptable, while still enabling needs to be met," notes the analyst. "In fact, many of the IP and COTS solutions that exist increase overall efficiencies in everyday operations - not only in emergencies - which makes the deployment of such systems more attractive to end users."