Recent Crises Prove the Need for a New Risk Intelligence Infrastructure

In the wake of recent escalations between Israel and Iran, a familiar yet troubling pattern has reemerged across corporate risk, security, and crisis management functions worldwide. Despite years of industry dialogue, lessons from similar crisis flashpoints- Lebanon, Khartoum, Port-au-Prince – were again overlooked or under-implemented. This reflection distills hard-earned observations from the last 48 hours and underscores the pressing need for transformation in how organizations access, verify, and act on critical intelligence.

The outcome of these failures is clear: a gap between the theoretical design of corporate crisis plans and the unpredictable, compressed realities of real-world events. It is this gap that Marshal Intelligence is purpose-built to close.

What Didn’t Work (Again)

1. Overreliance on Non-Adopted Platforms

Many organizations still depend on systems and platforms that their own end-users ignore. These are tools bought at corporate levels – platforms for threat alerts, regional intelligence, or crisis communication – that are too cumbersome, too separated from real workflows, or simply not trusted by those on the ground. During the Israel-Iran escalation, these tools often gathered digital dust while regional teams resorted to WhatsApp, Signal, and direct phone calls to gather real information.

The lesson: Systems that sit outside the daily workflow – regardless of price or reputation – will fail when users default to familiar, fast, peer-led channels. Decision-critical moments do not wait for users to log in elsewhere.

2. Alert Systems Lagging Real Events

Formal alert services repeatedly delivered warnings late – sometimes hours after an event unfolded – or were so generic as to offer no actionable guidance. In some cases, regional staff knew of developments via social media or local sources long before official alerts arrived. Worse still, some teams felt blocked from acting on real information because they waited for headquarters or official systems to validate what they already knew from direct contact.

The lesson: Intelligence lag kills initiative. Any system not designed for speed and decentralised information flow will compound the crisis risk.

3. Lack of Options When Primary Plans Collapse

Air evacuation assumptions were shattered when regional airspace closures made planned exfil routes impossible. Those lacking pre-coordinated, tested ground movement options were caught improvising under fire – or left immobile. Overland fallback plans – once treated as secondary – proved essential. Teams that had built relationships with local facilitators moved fast. Those relying on state or embassy-led guidance waited.

The lesson: Crisis mobility is now ground-led by default. Air corridors can no longer be guaranteed. Diplomatic clearance cannot be assumed.

4. Misinformation & Misattribution

False reports spread rapidly – sometimes even before first strikes – through news agencies, social platforms, and corporate channels. Misattributed photos, outdated footage, and rumour-sharing infected decision-making environments, creating noise that obscured genuine signals. Critical time was lost to verifying, debunking, or hesitating.

The lesson: Local validation is the only credible antidote to misinformation. Ground-level checks matter more than global media feeds.

5. Centralised Command Bottlenecks

Field teams raised concerns and suggested actions – only to be overruled by distant leadership unfamiliar with local realities. This command bottleneck delayed risk decisions and created operational friction. Meanwhile, organisations that delegated decision authority locally moved sooner, gained options, and reduced exposure.

The lesson: Decision rights must migrate closer to the field, with trust in practitioner judgment.

6. Fatigue from Unused Systems

Risk and security teams continue to license and fund expensive systems that were irrelevant in this crisis. Tools designed for audit trails, not for live decision support, showed their irrelevance once again. Managers should ask: If this system wasn’t useful this week, why do we still pay for it?

The lesson: Value audits are overdue. Systems that fail the ‘critical moment’ test should be retired.

What Actually Worked

In sharp contrast, some firms navigated this event well. What did they have in common?

• Updated risk postures from prior 2024/5 events, not stale playbooks.
• Direct, informal communication channels: WhatsApp, SMS, calls – not dependence on formal platforms. Although it is worth noting that while these channels are fast, familiar, and effective within trusted teams, they are inherently limited to pre-existing, closed networks. They do not scale to unknown or broader user bases without prior connections or invitations, restricting their reach in fast-moving, widespread crises, and denying access to information that might prove crucial.
• Trusted local networks via regional providers – not generic global vendor claims.
• Empowered field teams: Decisions made closer to the risk, without waiting for distant corporate approvals.

In short: speed, simplicity, local knowledge, trusted peers.

How Marshal’s Intelligence Infrastructure Will Solve These Problems

Marshal is currently uilding a real time, crowd sourced Intelligence infrastructure that directly addresses every failure exposed in this crisis – and does so by embracing the reality of how practitioners actually work under stress.

1. Embedded in Real Workflows

Rather than forcing teams to log into yet another portal or app, Marshal’s browser extension integrates into the daily work environment. Practitioners receive relevant alerts, updates, and chats right where they are working – no platform-switching required.

2. Peer-Led, Practitioner-Populated Discussion

Rather than pushing corporate-filtered intelligence, Marshal allows any registered user to share situational updates, questions, and tips directly into the system’s open forums – segmented by 45+ security, resilience, and defence domains.

Marshal does not pretend to pre-validate information. Instead, wisdom is crowdsourced in real time, with users making informed judgments based on direct peer inpu – not a distant central analyst.

3. AI Summary On Demand

Users can scan an entire thread or discussion – but when time is short, they can also click for an AI-generated summary. This feature condenses the chat content into actionable bullet points – if and only if relevant data exists – helping teams spot verified road closures, recommended actions, or validated risks without reading dozens of comments.

No speculation. No invented data. Only what’s actually in the discussion.

4. Instant, Unfiltered Local Validation

By design, Marshal encourages in-location input – reducing dependence on slow corporate feeds or external vendors. When air corridors close or routes change, local members report immediately – providing guidance others can act on before state systems even catch up.

5. Decentralised Intelligence Flow

Marshal breaks the command bottleneck. Field users share and consume intelligence without HQ gatekeeping. This flattens the information structure, empowering regional decision-making at the speed of relevance.

6. No Adoption Burden

Marshal is designed to match how real operators think and behave, not how software architects wish they would. Users join their professional domain forum, receive updates, contribute, or request AI summaries, all from the browser window they already have open. Frictionless, familiar, fast.

The New Benchmark for Crisis Preparedness

The Israel-Iran escalation proved the fragility of over-centralised, slow, top-down systems. It also proved the quiet effectiveness of organisations that decentralised, simplified, and trusted their field operators.

Marshal Intelligence Infrastructure will make this best practice the standard, not the exception.

For risk managers, security directors, crisis planners, and operational leads, this means:

• Faster access to crowd-sourced, locally validated updates.
• AI summaries when rapid situational clarity is essential.
• A working environment that does not interrupt other platforms or processes.
• A permanent, searchable archive of real crisis dialogues for post-event learning.
• A system that aligns with what worked in Israel, Lebanon, Khartoum – not what failed.

The world of security and resilience is shifting. Conflict windows are shortening. Warning times are vanishing. Airspace cannot be assumed safe. Diplomatic help cannot be guaranteed.

In this environment, Marshal’s Intelligence Infrastructure will stand as the first purpose-built, practitioner-led digital forum where the real risk and resilience community can operate as they need to – not as legacy systems dictate.