GEMB BIA Report 1.0
GEMB BIA Report 1.0
Document Information
Project Name: Business Impact Analysis
Prepared By: R.P. Draper FBCI Document Version No: 1.0
Title: Senior Consultant Document Version Date: 10th June, 2010
Reviewed By: Review Date:
Distribution List
From Date Phone/Fax/Email
R.P. Draper 10th June, 2010 bob.draper@pentire.co.uk
* Action Types: Approve, Review, Inform, File, Action Required, Attend Meeting, Other (please specify)
Version History
Ver. No. Ver. Date Revised By Description Reviewer Status
th
1.0 10 June, 2010 RPD BIA Report RPD Completed
Table of Contents
Proprietary Notice.............................................................................................................................................. 4
Executive Summary........................................................................................................................................... 5
1 Introduction And Scope............................................................................................................................. 5
2 Summary of Key Findings......................................................................................................................... 6
3 Summary of Main Recommendations...................................................................................................... 7
BIA Report.......................................................................................................................................................... 8
1 Introduction................................................................................................................................................ 8
2 Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................................... 9
3 Scope, Objectives and Approach............................................................................................................. 9
4 Business Impact Analysis....................................................................................................................... 10
5 Outage Tolerance and Recovery Timescales........................................................................................ 12
6 Outage Impacts........................................................................................................................................ 12
7 Overall Criticality Rating.......................................................................................................................... 12
8 Priorities.................................................................................................................................................... 13
9 Systems / Applications Requirements................................................................................................... 14
10 Critical Data.............................................................................................................................................. 18
11 Critical Staff by Department.................................................................................................................... 18
12 Financial Impact(s)................................................................................................................................... 19
13 Impact Upon Reputation / Image............................................................................................................. 19
14 Critical Documentation............................................................................................................................ 19
15 Comments / Observations....................................................................................................................... 20
16 Recommended Actions........................................................................................................................... 24
Appendix A BIA Participants...................................................................................................................... 25
Appendix B Business Areas included in the BIA......................................................................................27
Appendix C Critical Business Areas Ranked by Recovery Timescales and Outage Tolerances.........28
Appendix D Critical Business Areas Ranked by Potential Impact(s)......................................................32
Appendix E Overall Criticality of Business Areas....................................................................................36
Appendix F Critical IT Applications by Time Scale..................................................................................37
Appendix G HP Servers............................................................................................................................... 43
Appendix H Information Collection Questionnaire (for reference)................................................................52
Proprietary Notice
No part of this document (including any designs) may be reproduced in any form, published, broadcast or
transmitted or have an adaptation made of it, except with the prior written permission of Hewlett-Packard
Company to parties outside of GE Money Bank.
Hewlett Packard makes no warranty of any kind concerning this document, including, but not limited to, the
implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Hewlett Packard shall not be liable for
errors contained herein or direct indirect, special incidental or consequential damages concerning the
furnishing, performance, or use of this material.
Executive Summary
Norway
Overall
Op.
Function / Process Criticality RPO MTO
Impact
Rating
Originate 89.50 1 Hour < 1 Day Immediate
Collections 88.17 < 1 Day 1 Day Immediate
Marketing 86.73 < 1 Day < 1 day Immediate
Customer Service 73.88 < 1 Day 3 Days Immediate
IT 73.05 3 Days Zero Immediate
Sweden
Overall
Op.
Function / Process Criticality RPO MTO
Impact
Rating
Operations 100.23 1 Hour < 1 Day Immediate
B2B Sales / Instore Origination Process 92.73 1 Hour < 1 Day Immediate
Marketing & Consumer Sales/ DTC Acquisition 92.73 1 Hour < 1 Day Immediate
Underwriting (NBSM process) 85.30 < 1 Day < 1 Day Immediate
IT 74.52 3 Days 1 Day Immediate
Note : The ranking scores shown are the figures used in the analysis process to assess criticality. It must be noted that
they are not intended to be used as a comparison to any standards, best practices or regulatory requirements
For the majority of these areas, the maximum tolerable outage is less than one day. For the
processes in this top five ranking that show a longer tolerance to outage, it has been agreed that
this is probably due to information submitted in the review response.
The participating business areas’ perception of the business Recovery Time Objectives (i.e. the
time in which a minimum acceptable level of operation should be restored - RTO) for IT systems
range from virtually zero to longer than one week, the latter being predominantly in “back office”
or support functions. If the selected recovery solutions cannot meet the perceived business
requirements for critical functions or processes, a program to develop and maintain manual
fallback procedures should be considered.
The IT Recovery Time Objective for the systems supporting critical functions or processes
identified as critical was agreed as being the same as the application recovery timescales
(between “less than one day” and twenty four hours)
The review highlighted a potential exposure to effective recovery as a consequence of the current
back-up cycles. Where there is a stated Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of less than one day,
but the stated current data back up cycles are daily, there is a high probability that the loss of
transactions / data will be greater than has been stated as tolerable in the event of a failure of
the systems supporting that business function
Business Continuity Planning (BCP) awareness is high, and all respondents and meeting
attendees appreciate the need for improvement to the current situation (no current plan in place /
no work area recovery). At the time of the review, there were no resources specifically allocated
to implement and maintain a full Nordic business continuity programme, although in discussions,
it was indicated that this would be given future priority.
It was noted that few functions have adequate, formally documented, manual fallback or “work-
around” procedures that could be implemented in an incident / emergency that might result in IT
services being unavailable, thereby increasing the perceived dependency upon IT. This, in turn,
increases the necessity to recover IT systems within a very short time following an incident that
might cause their failure.
It must be noted that the recovery of IT systems has been reviewed on an “all or nothing” basis,
meaning that an application, and its associated data, would be recovered completely in the
timeframe required. Therefore, recovery does not have to be repeated for any requirement for
the system, application or data shown as a requirement for a function or process at a later time.
This will allow flexibility when considering priorities of recovery of business operations after the
initial restore of critical functions / processes, as identified in this review.
GEMB should request HP to provide a proposal for an IT Disaster Recovery Solution to cater for the
potential loss of IT services for the critical systems and applications in each country. This proposal
should meet the perceived business requirements (i.e. within twelve hours or one day). Alternative
solutions should also be presented to show the costs of recovery within 24 and 36 hours. The
solution(s) should also take consideration of the Recovery Point Objectives as identified by the
business areas. This may involve changes to back-up procedures.
GEMB should review the proposed solutions. If the primary solution is not considered acceptable
(e.g. for reasons of cost), GEMB should review the business areas’ Recovery Time and Recovery
Point Objectives to adjust requirements to meet the most acceptable recovery solution.
GEMB and HP should implement the most suitable solution and procedures as soon as possible.
GEMB should implement a programme to develop a regional standard Business Continuity
Management Strategy, with appropriate levels of planning. This may be in the form of a regional plan
with sections for each country, or separate plans for each location. Plans should also include local
(country) escalation of incident / problem management to regional and then to corporate
management levels.
BIA Report
1 Introduction
As one of the world’s largest retailer finance program providers, GE Money prides itself on being able
to deliver fast, dependable financial solutions to consumers, businesses and merchants. GE Money
has more than 130 million customers in 55 countries around the world.
GE Money Bank (GEMB) has outsourced IT Operations in Sweden, Norway and Denmark to
Hewlett-Packard (HP). IT Service Continuity had not been included in the development of the
transformation of the IT infrastructure to HP and, as the transformation progressed, GEMB became
aware of the need to complement the IT Infrastructure solution with IT Disaster Recovery (DR)
measures sufficient to meet business and regulatory requirements.
GEMB and HP discussed various possible DR solutions and reached a common understanding that
accurate DR requirements, expressed in terms of Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery
Point Objectives (RPO) should be defined for GEMB’s critical IT systems in order to design and
implement cost effective DR solutions.
GEMB, therefore, initiated a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) project with the objective to define the
business requirements for IT disaster recovery in the three Nordic Region countries of Denmark,
Norway and Sweden. Due to resourcing constraints within HP in the timescales required by GEMB,
HP engaged Pentire Solutions Ltd, a UK-based partner company, to carry out the BIA.
The primary purpose of the BIA was to identify the critical business functions / processes in each of
the Nordic Region countries, and for each :
• the main systems / applications supporting the activity
• the Recovery Time Objective (RTO). This is defined as the time within which a minimum level
of function / service must be operational.
• the Recovery Point Objective (RPO). This is defined as the maximum tolerable data loss that
can be sustained in order to provide an acceptable level of service / functionality.
• the IT recovery requirements over time
• vital records / data required for recovery
Using the information obtained in the BIA, it is also possible to identify the Maximum Tolerable
Outage (MTO) for each participating business area. This is defined as the time, after which, there
will be severe impact(s) upon the local, regional or global business operation, from which it may be
difficult to recover with any degree of success.
The BIA information collection process was conducted by Bob Draper FBCI between 17 th June and
4th July, 2010. Information was gathered via questionnaire and interviews with client-selected
personnel. The business functions / processes that were covered by the BIA were selected by each
country. The results were validated by meetings with key function / process personnel in Norway
and Sweden; the responses for the Danish business operation were submitted by the local co-
ordinator; there were no validation meetings with the business functions in Denmark. There was a
close-out / summary meeting to present the local outcomes to each country’s management team at
the end of each stage of the BIA process. The outcomes from each country were also reviewed with
the GEMB project lead, Martin Koch.
This document summarises the findings from the BIA in each of the three countries covered by the
project. It presents information relating to the relative criticality of business functions / processes in
each country and provides, primarily, information about the Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and
Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs), with information regarding the potential financial, operational and
reputational impacts of disruption to business operations. The report also considers GEMB’s
Business Continuity Management (BCM) strategies and makes recommendations for ensuring the
strategy and recovery solutions meet the requirements of the business.
2 Acknowledgements
The author would like to take this opportunity to thank all GEMB participants and contributors to the
BIA process - a list can be found in Appendix A – who gave their time and responded positively to
requests for information, and in particular those personnel in each country who co-ordinated this
effort and for their hospitality.
3.2 Objectives
Identify critical business functions and supporting systems
Identify Recovery Time and Recovery Point Objectives (RTO and RPO)
Summarise recovery requirements over time (people, facilities, IT)
Identify vital records required for recovery
Produce BIA report
3.3 Approach
Due to timescales imposed upon the project, there was no opportunity to develop a GEMB-specific
information collection questionnaire. It was agreed with GEMB that an adaptation of a suitable
“generic” document would be used to collect the required information. A copy of the information
collection questionnaire is included in Appendix H. With hindsight, it has been recognised that this
has had the additional benefit of obtaining valuable baseline information relating to the status of
business continuity planning in the region. The findings of this BIA report include comment /
recommendations on this subject.
Information was gathered from key personnel from each business area via responses to the BIA
questionnaire that was supplied to them via the designated co-ordinators in each of the there GE
business units.
As stated above, the business functions / processes to be included in the project were selected by
each country. There were also differences in the method of validation of responses.
In Norway and Sweden, requested information was obtained from respondents in the selected
business areas and on-site validation meetings were held with each participating business function or
process. Danish management decided that all responses should be collated by the local co-ordinator
and that individual meetings with business function or process personnel would not be applicable.
In the on-site validation meetings to review responses, when assessing impacts, the interviewees
were asked to assume the worst possible scenario striking at the worst possible time (month-end,
year-end, payroll etc.).
The validation process was, in all three countries, concluded by a presentation to local management
of the initial findings of the BIA for that country’s functions or processes. Due to reasons of
availability and logistics, the close-out meetings for Norway and Denmark were conducted remotely,
via conference link, from the UK. In Sweden, the originally planned on-site meeting took place. For
each country, a PowerPoint presentation was prepared and presented. This included tables showing
the relative ranking of each function / process in each country in terms of outage tolerances and
criticality. The GEMB project lead retained copies of each meeting’s material.
In terms of participation, the approach taken by each country was :
• Denmark : Nine responses : Business processes, based upon the outcomes of previous internal
review of criticality
• Norway : Ten responses : seven business functions with responses from the three main
processes in Operations
• Sweden : Fifteen responses : Business processes (Operations : one response)
A list of the participating business functions / processes in each country is shown in Appendix B.
The findings of the review across the three countries have been consolidated into this single report,
on the basis that the outcomes have been validated for each one. It is this validated impact analysis
and IT systems information that is contained in this report.
The completed responses have been retained by the local co-ordinators. They must not be regarded
as a formal part of, or appendices to, this report.
The process management and business operations are well managed and the levels of procedural
documentation supporting these (for normal operations) are of a reasonably high standard across all
functions and processes. No evidence was presented to indicate that GEMB operates to any
recognised quality management standards (e.g. ISO900x) to manage and control documentation.
6 Outage Impacts
The BIA identified the ranking of each participating area in terms of the following potential impacts
upon the business operations in each country
• Financial Impact
• Operational Impact
• Impact upon the GEMB Reputation / Image
Tables showing the criticality of the participating areas, ranked by these criteria, are found in
Appendix D.
Denmark
Overall
Op.
Function / Process Criticality RPO MTO
Impact
Rating
Operations - Authorization Processing 97.00 1 Hour Zero Immediate
Risk - Risk Origination - Scorecard 74.28 1 Day < 1 Day Immediate
Collection - Early Collection 71.33 < 1 Day < 1 Day < 1 Day
Operations - Origination 70.92 3 Days < 1 Day Immediate
Operations – Customer Service - Customer support 63.45 3 Days 3 Days < 1 Day
Norway
Overall
Op.
Function / Process Criticality RPO MTO
Impact
Rating
Originate 89.50 1 Hour < 1 Day Immediate
Collections 88.17 < 1 Day 1 Day Immediate
Marketing 86.73 < 1 Day < 1 day Immediate
Customer Service 73.88 < 1 Day 3 Days Immediate
IT 73.05 3 Days Zero Immediate
Sweden
Overall
Op.
Function / Process Criticality RPO MTO
Impact
Rating
Operations 100.23 1 Hour < 1 Day Immediate
B2B Sales / Instore Origination Process 92.73 1 Hour < 1 Day Immediate
Marketing & Consumer Sales/ DTC Acquisition 92.73 1 Hour < 1 Day Immediate
Underwriting (NBSM process) 85.30 < 1 Day < 1 Day Immediate
IT 74.52 3 Days 1 Day Immediate
8 Priorities
The tables for each country in section 7 show the relative priorities (Overall Criticality Rating) for
recovery of the key business functions within the scope of this review, and the timescales within
which each department/function should be operational. The recovery of the underpinning IT systems
should reflect this criticality.
It is important to recognise that the tables in section 7 and also in Appendix C (rankings by Recovery
Timescales) show the priorities and timescales for recovery of an acceptable level of GEMB service
that must be re-established and does not suggest that business units can “do nothing” during this
time. For instance, business partners, suppliers, regulators and other external agencies may need to
be contacted on day one. This is reflected in the critical staff requirements shown in section 10 and
must be reflected in (future) Incident Management procedures as part of each business unit’s
Business Continuity Strategy and Planning.
It is also important to note that the information shown reflects the priorities for restoration of the
critical “normal” operations of each function or process. Dependent upon the nature of a disruption,
and its potential impact(s) upon GEMB business operations, certain other departments or individuals,
such as IT and Media Communication may be required immediately to perform technical recovery
and to manage external communications. Decisions on issues of response to incidents are a factor
of effective Business Continuity Planning.
Denmark
Note : Danish BIA responses did not identify system / applications requirements beyond the “after 24 hours”
time period; the systems identified were those deemed critical to the immediate recovery of business activities.
Denmark
Business Application User Group Criticality
AcceptCard.dk Ops Orig < 1 day
Batch (insurance) Ops Cust. Servs < 1 day
Cadre IT < 1 day
Collection < 1 day
DataWareHouse Risk Reserves < 1 day
DDB.dk Finance < 1 day
Dialer system Collection < 1 day
Excel Risk Reserves < 1 day
Formscape Ops Cust. Servs < 1 day
GE Network Ops Auth < 1 day
Denmark
Business Application User Group Criticality
Ops Orig < 1 day
Risk Orig < 1 day
Collection < 1 day
HR < 1 day
Finance < 1 day
IT < 1 day
Risk Reserves < 1 day
GEMoneyBank.dk Ops Orig < 1 day
IC Archive Ops Cust. Servs < 1 day
InterFlex HR < 1 day
Mercury Risk Orig < 1 day
Multiløn HR < 1 day
Nice Ops Cust. Servs < 1 day
NSBM Ops Orig < 1 day
Risk Orig < 1 day
Oracle Financials Finance < 1 day
Oracle Financials AP Finance < 1 day
PBS routing Ops Auth < 1 day
Phone system Collection < 1 day
Ops Orig < 1 day
Postilion Ops Auth < 1 day
Ops Cust. Servs < 1 day
probe Risk Orig < 1 day
RKI/CPR Ops Orig < 1 day
SAS Risk Reserves < 1 day
SMASH Ops Cust. Servs < 1 day
Symposium Ops Cust. Servs < 1 day
Vision Plus Ops Auth < 1 day
Collection < 1 day
Ops Cust. Servs < 1 day
WEB indus Collection < 1 day
Formscape Ops Orig < after 24 hours
Importer Ops Orig < after 24 hours
Mercury Ops Orig < after 24 hours
Vision + Ops Orig < after 24 hours
Workflow Ops Orig < after 24 hours
Norway
Norway
Business Application User Group Criticality
Argus IT < 1 day
Experian Sales < 1 day
Originate < 1 day
FLS Cust Service < 1 day
NBSM Sales < 1 day
Originate < 1 day
Origo Sales < 1 day
Originate < 1 day
Phone System IT < 1 day
Readsoft Originate < 1 day
TFS Sales < 1 day
Originate < 1 day
Cust Service < 1 day
Web Shop Solution Sales < 1 day
Data Warehouse (DWH) Cust Service < after 24 hours
Dialler Collections < after 24 hours
Fermat Risk < after 24 hours
markeme Marketing < after 24 hours
Microsoft Office (+ all other
standard software) Risk < after 24 hours
Cust Service < after 24 hours
Nova Finance < after 24 hours
Collections < after 24 hours
Nova Rulle Collections < after 24 hours
Phone system Collections < after 24 hours
Originate < after 24 hours
Report Manager Finance < after 24 hours
SMTP Server Originate < after 24 hours
TFS Finance < after 24 hours
Collections < after 24 hours
View21 Collections < after 24 hours
View21 (including Auto Rulle) Risk < after 24 hours
Workflow Collections < after 24 hours
Sweden
Sweden
Business Application User Group Criticality
Ansok B2B < 1 day
U/Wr NBSM < 1 day
M&CS DTC < 1 day
Dialer Operations < 1 day
Homepage M&CS DTC < 1 day
NBSM B2B < 1 day
M&CS DTC < 1 day
U/Wr NBSM < 1 day
NOS B2B < 1 day
Nova Operations < 1 day
U/Wr NBSM < 1 day
Telephony B2B < 1 day
M&CS DTC < 1 day
TFS B2B < 1 day
M&CS DTC < 1 day
Operations < 1 day
U/Wr NBSM < 1 day
UC Operations < 1 day
Atlas Operations < after 24 hours
Clear Interact Operations < after 24 hours
Cosmos Operations < after 24 hours
CVS (code version system) IT < after 24 hours
CWC M&CS Stat < after 24 hours
M&CS DTC < after 24 hours
DWH B2B < after 24 hours
M&CS Stat < after 24 hours
M&CS DTC < after 24 hours
FLS M&CS Stat < after 24 hours
M&CS DTC < after 24 hours
IVR B2B < after 24 hours
M&CS DTC < after 24 hours
Network & Infrastructure incl
telephony IT < after 24 hours
Opalis (Batch infrastructure job
control system) IT < after 24 hours
TFS M&CS Stat < after 24 hours
Virtual office IT < after 24 hours
10 Critical Data
Respondents did not identify specific data recovery requirements for the same reasons as referred to
in Section 9, above, related to application / server mapping. The conclusion agreed with
interviewees and the GEMB project lead is that all data required by the critical applications must be
available upon restore / restart of recovered systems.
Respondents were asked to state the minimum staff requirements for working at an alternative,
temporary location in the event of the GEMB office not being accessible / usable, for any reason.
The following tables summarises the critical staff requirements which would need to be catered for
following a disaster or major incident affecting the main GEMB location in each country. It is
extremely important to assign staff with the appropriate key skills required in response to a disruptive
incident that causes the business continuity plan and facilities (should these exist) to be activated.
Please note that the total staff numbers are the sum of the departments represented in this BIA and
based upon figures given.
After Longer
Within
Denmark < 1 day 24 than 1
1 week
hours week
Personnel 43 43 58 64
Workspace (i.e. desk, PC, telephone) 43 43 43 49
After Longer
Within
Norway < 1 day 24 than 1
1 week
hours week
Personnel 28 85 206 233
Workspace (i.e. desk, PC, telephone) 28 85 150 177
After Longer
Within
Sweden < 1 day 24 than 1
1 week
hours week
Personnel 66 105 156 239
Workspace (i.e. desk, PC, telephone) 61 95 136 199
Note : Differences in personnel / workspace numbers are due to sharing of facilities in areas that operate
shift patterns (e.g. Customer Service).
In addition to these application systems, the IT infrastructure and services underpinning the
applications, such as firewalls and catalogue services, must be considered to have RTOs and RPOs
corresponding to the most critical applications.
4 Financial Impact(s)
An accurate assessment of financial impacts due to failure of IT systems proved difficult for the
majority of respondents. It was agreed that this topic would be reviewed in more depth in the
development of a wider, more encompassing Business Continuity Management programme and
planning.
Responses that were supplied indicated significant potential losses, ranging from $100K per day for
Denmark (info supplied by Collections), $200K for Sweden (info supplied by Operations) and over
$400K per day in Norway (info supplied by Collections). However, as agreed, a more in-depth review
is required to establish specific levels of loss, as the financial impact would be dependent upon the
nature and length of the disruption to business activities. An incident affecting the Bank’s operational
capability would not have a major impact upon its assets or liabilities, and if effective continuity
procedures are in place, processes could be resumed within a timeframe to minimise potential
losses.
In discussions, it was also noted that a major disruption to business operations might result in the
loss of one, or more, client(s) due to an inability to meet their requirements. For example, in Norway,
the review identified that the average client contract is worth $20m over three years ($6.3m per year).
Loss of just one client due to operational failure would, therefore, have a significant impact upon
revenue.
Another consideration is the potential for direct financial impact in terms of penalties and fines. It was
noted during the review that each country’s financial regulatory body could rescind GEMB’s banking
licence in the event of prolonged failure to provide services and to submit required reports.
In spite of the difficulties obtaining hard financial numbers, it is obvious that the financial losses to
GEMB (loss of sales / new business and due to failure of the collections process) would be
significant if operations are not resumed within tolerable timescales after a disruptive incident. GEMB
is putting its survival at stake by not having an up to date and tested BCP in place in the Nordic
region. The review discussions showed that GEMB is aware of this issue and this project shows that
the intent to reduce the potential impact of an IT failure is being taken seriously.
6 Critical Documentation
Although the BIA review did not include specific inspection of documentation storage in each
location, the following issues were identified during the review discussions.
1. Legal Documentation
Most critical computer data is regularly backed up, and much of it would be available following a
disaster, although this may not be as up to date as required.
The understanding gained from this review is that all data stored on what may be termed as the core
business systems is backed up to tape at least daily. This review has highlighted the potential need
to improve the data back-up or duplication to meet the RPO requirements (reference sections 5, 7
and 9).
The review discussions identified a number of areas where critical information is held on hard copy.
The main examples of this are the legal and HR functions, where original documents (e.g. contracts)
are held. It is understood that a programme of scanning new documents has been implemented, but
not uniformly across the region. At the time of the review, many “historical”, or “legacy” documents
are still held as physical copies, ands these are only in the main office locations. Whilst only a limited
amount of work in progress might be lost in the event of an IT failure, the impact of loss of original
documents would be a long recovery process in getting copies from third parties and getting legal
confirmation of their validity. A prime example of this was stated in Norway, where obtaining copies
of legal judgements from the judicial system would be a costly and lengthy process.
2. Procedural Documentation
The review has identified that there is no consistency across the Nordic region, nor within each
country, of procedural documentation that covers critical business processes. In some cases,
detailed procedures are documented to work instruction level; in others, documentation exists only to
give a descriptive outline of the process. There was no evidence of the documentation being part of
a quality system, nor of it being compliant to any standards (e.g. regulatory or corporate).
When asked where the documentation exists, most respondents who were able to answer indicated
that it is held on shared drives. In the event of a failure of core business systems that are hosted
externally, this may not present a problem. However, in the event of an incident affecting the main
GE location in a country, and therefore the ability to access the main business systems, the
documentation required (specifically that dealing with manual work-arounds, where and if these exist)
may not be accessible within the timeframes required. In future BC planning, manual copies of
critical documentation should be held in a secure off-site location.
12 Comments / Observations
The following notes summarise the observations made during the BIA process for each country.
Each point was discussed and agreed with the participants and / or the GEMB Project Lead. In
some cases, these are not directly related to the specific objectives of this BIA review, but are
significant in that they relate to GEMB’s ability to recover and continue local business operations
following any incident that may cause them to be disrupted.
1 The most time critical functions identified are the ones directly related to daily transaction
management and are client interfacing. A failure of those functions will cause damage within a
single day and are very visible. Less time critical functions, such as reconciliation and risk
management, becomes critical after a few days, but are probably more critical to the Bank’s
survival over time.
2 Most departments are inter-dependent and the inability of one to complete its processes would
have a serious knock-on effect to the others. There is a significant reliance on the IT
infrastructure and it was recognised that the business could not survive without IT support. As the
business continues to grow, there will be an increased reliance and dependency upon the
availability and integrity of IT services supporting business operations.
3 It was noted that few functions have adequate documented manual fallback or “work-around”
procedures that could be implemented in an incident / emergency that might result in IT services
being unavailable, thereby increasing the perceived dependency upon this function. This, in turn,
increases the necessity to recover IT systems within a very short time following an incident that
might cause their failure.
4 Recovery Time Objectives (i.e. the tolerable downtime according to users - RTO) for IT systems
range from virtually zero to longer than one week, the latter being predominantly in back office or
support functions. If recovery solutions cannot meet the perceived business requirements for
critical functions or processes, a program to develop and maintain manual fallback procedures
should be considered.
5 The recovery of IT systems has been reviewed on an “all or nothing” basis, meaning that an
application, and its associated data, would be recovered completely in the timeframe required
(reference section 5 above and Appendix F : Critical IT Applications by Timescale). Therefore,
recovery does not have to be repeated for any requirement for the system, application or data
shown at a later time.
6 It was recognised in the validation discussions that there are business processes that are cyclic,
and that criticalities are not easily stated for these instances. It is therefore important to recognise
that, in the event of disruption to, or failure of, IT services, there must be some flexibility of
response and recovery in the response process. This should be built into the initial incident
management procedure for recovery.
7 From the responses received, and from points raised in the review discussions, it was noted that
the information available relating to dependencies is not effective. Every process in an
organisation has two types of dependency.
• “Upstream” : the processes, facilities or information that must be in place, operational or
completed before this process can be operationally effective.
• “Downstream” : the functions or processes that depend upon this process being in place,
operational or completed before they can be operationally effective.
Across all the participating business areas, there were few responses with correlating upstream /
downstream dependencies. The process to develop a wider Business Continuity Management
strategy and planning should identify the specifics of each business area’s dependencies.
8 The review was intended to focus on the criticality of IT systems and, therefore, did not include
specific dependencies upon the availability of individual staff members. All departments should
review “single points of failure” to ensure that all critical work functions are adequately covered
should one or more the key persons be absent.
9 The responses highlighted a potential exposure to effective recovery as a consequence of the
current back-up cycles. Where there is a stated Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of less than one
day, but the stated current data back up cycles are daily, there is a high probability that the loss of
transactions / data will be greater than has been stated as tolerable in the event of a failure of the
systems supporting that business function. If the stated RPO’s are to be achieved, the back-up
cycles should reflect the requirement.
Examples of areas stating an RPO of one hour, but with daily (overnight) back-ups
Denmark : Operations : Authorisation Processing
Sweden : B2B Sales / Instore Origination Process
10 When reviewing the RPO requirements and back-up cycles, consideration should be given to the
potential problems that may be caused by possible inconsistency in synchronisation between data
on differing systems that is backed up at different times. Any differences may impact the ability to
recover effectively. The review highlighted the potential problem when discussing back-ups for
the Nova and TFS systems for the Collections process in Norway.
11 In all three countries (ref section 11, above), there is a requirement for alternative work space to
be made available in the event of the main location(s) being unusable or inaccessible. In the
current situation, there will be major delays in recovery of business operations whilst suitable and
sufficient accommodation is found.
Norway has an arrangement with the Swedish office for the provision of fifty workplaces in the
event of an incident making the office in Stavanger unusable or inaccessible. These would be
used by Risk and Operations groups.
The only other participating business functions or processes that indicated that there are
designated alternative locations to which they would relocate are
• Sweden : Risk (Fraud process)
• Denmark : Operations (Authorisation) / HR / Finance
No other business functions / areas were able to state that there are arrangements in place for the
provision of alternative working space.
12 The current arrangement for Norwegian personnel to re-locate to Stockholm does not take
account of call centre operations. Discussions also highlighted that the arrangement has been
made without designation of the actual employees who might be expected to travel, nor
verification of their ability / willingness to do so.
13 In a number of the validation meetings, participants indicated that, in the event of the main office
location being unavailable, functions or processes might be continued via home working. Whilst
this may be a temporary solution for some functions, it would be impractical for others (e.g.
customer services call centre operations). It was also noted that, unless the home working culture
is already in existence, this cannot be sustained over long periods, due to needs of
communication and control.
14 Although the core business systems would be recoverable via the outsourcing provider(s), local IT
environments would need to be recovered to hardware and peripheral equipment that would need
to be obtained at the time of the incident and its aftermath. The BIA was presented with no
evidence to show that arrangements in place to guarantee availability of required hardware at
short notice.
15 In each country, there is a stated reliance upon the availability of telephony facilities, especially for
call centre / customer service operations, needing specialised equipment that may not be able to
be sourced as part of the proposed recovery solution(s) that will be considered following this
review.
16 In the event of a disruption requiring relocation of operations, there will be a need to implement
the required links to service providers (e.g. HP for business systems) to ensure that the minimum
level of business functionality can be recovered.
17 In the event of an incident impacting the GEMB office location in a country, several areas (e.g.
Norway HR / Sweden L & C) will have a reliance on hardcopy information. This may not be
available, as the only versions are held in the main office and may be inaccessible. A need to re-
create the required information may severely impact recovery of these departments’ ability to
recover business operations.
18 Although the review has not highlighted any specific areas where there are specific dependencies
upon the availability of individual staff members, all departments should review “single points of
failure” to ensure that all critical work functions are adequately covered should one or more the
key persons be absent.
19 BCP awareness is high, and all respondents and meeting attendees appreciate the need for
improvement to the current situation (no current plan in place / no work area recovery). At the time
of the review, there were no resources specifically allocated to implement and maintain a Nordic
business continuity programme, although in discussions, it was indicated that this would be given
future priority.
20 The review highlighted that, in general, business function / process owners are not fully aware of
the IT infrastructure that supports their operation. In more than one instance, the responsibility for
data and functionality was seen to be solely an IT responsibility. Assumptions were made
regarding location of data and back-up frequencies. There is a need for business management to
take “ownership” of their systems, applications and data to enable them to more fully understand
the potential impacts of change to, or failure of, these IT services.
21 When considering IT recovery solutions, the legal / regulatory implications of transferring personal
data outside the country / region must be reviewed. Swedish law, for example, does not permit
this without the explicit consent of the individual. Whilst GEMB has obtained the permission of its
employees to have their details held and processed outside of the EU (via staff contracts), the
review discussions highlighted the need to verify that this consent is given by consumers (e.g. as
part of the loan or financial agreement). If this consent is not included, any proposed IT disaster
recovery solution must take this into consideration.
22 The review has highlighted the need to consider the phone and scanning systems to be an
integral part of the recovery requirements that would not be included in an IT disaster recovery
solution for systems hosted by HP. This should be reviewed separately and included in future
business continuity planning.
13 Recommended Actions
1 GEMB should request HP to provide a proposal for an IT Disaster Recovery Solution to cater
for the potential loss of IT services for the critical systems and applications in each country.
This proposal should include the following options :
1. IT recovery to meet the perceived business requirements as outlined above (i.e. within
twelve hours or one day)
2. An alternative to give recovery time within 24 hours
3. An alternative to give recovery time within 36 hours
The solution(s) should also take consideration of the Recovery Point Objectives as identified by
the business areas. This may involve changes to back-up procedures.
2 GEMB should review the proposed solutions. If necessary, GEMB should review the Recovery
Time and Recovery Point Objectives to adjust requirements to meet the most acceptable
effective recovery solution proposed by HP. This may necessitate the development of
structure and documented work-around procedures.
3 GEMB and HP should implement the most suitable solution as soon as possible, including
procedures to manage the response and recovery (e.g. to ensure flexibility of priorities).
4 GEMB should implement a programme to develop a regional standard Business Continuity
Management Strategy, with appropriate levels of planning. This may be in the form of a
regional plan with sections for each country, or separate plans for each location. Plans should
also include local (country) escalation of incident / problem management to regional and then
to corporate management levels.
Response Validation
Norway
Tom Schakman IT
Christian Balchen CFO
Nelly Fossheim Finance
Synnove Singha Finance
Samii Trto Finance
Terje Moldestad Sales
Volker Gloe Risk
Petter Gravas Risk
Knut Overnes Operations
Hege Olsen Operations : Customer Services
Karina Goa Operations : New Business
Tarjei Smistad Operations
Gunn Loland Marketing
Borge Liavik Marketing
Oyvind Norberg Legal
Rannveig Drengstig Collections
Tore Wilberg Collections
Alan Howarth Business Security Officer (Internal project co-ordinator)
Martin Koch IT Controller Leader (not all meetings)
Sweden
Norway Collections
Customer Service
Finance
HR
IT
L&C
Marketing
Originate
Risk
Sales
Denmark
Norway
Sweden
Financial Impact
Function / Process Financial
Collection - Early Collection 48.00
Operations - Origination 40.00
IT - ServiceDesk - Incident Management 37.00
Finance - Account Payables - Account Payables 33.00
Operations - Authorization Processing 32.00
Risk - Risk Origination - Scorecard 30.00
Operations - Customer Service - Customer support 24.00
Risk - Reserves, Fraud and reporting - Reserves 21.00
HR - Payroll - Salary payment for GE 13.00
Operational Impact
Function / Process Operational
Operations - Authorization Processing 60.00
Risk - Risk Origination - Scorecard 53.00
Operations - Customer Service - Customer support 51.00
Operations - Origination 49.00
Collection - Early Collection 20.00
IT - ServiceDesk - Incident Management 15.00
Finance - Account Payables - Account Payables 9.00
Risk - Reserves, Fraud and reporting - Reserves 9.00
HR - Payroll - Salary payment for GE 9.00
Norway
Financial Impact
Function / Process Financial
Collections 58.00
Originate 38.00
Risk 35.00
Marketing 32.00
Sales 23.00
IT 22.00
Finance 13.00
HR 13.00
Customer Service 13.00
Legal & Compliance 13.00
Operational Impact
Function / Process Operational
Marketing 60.00
Customer Service 54.00
Collections 52.00
Finance 51.00
IT 51.00
Originate 46.00
Sales 33.00
Risk 29.00
Legal & Compliance 19.00
HR 17.00
Sweden
Financial Impact
Function / Process Financial
Operations 52.00
Incoming Payments 37.00
A/P process 35.00
IT 33.00
Underwriting (NBSM process) 30.00
Outgoing payments (manual) 27.00
Risk Fraud 27.00
Legal & Compliance/AML transaction monitoring 23.00
Risk Fermat Process 23.00
B2B Sales / Instore Origination Process 22.00
Marketing & Consumer Sales/ DTC Acquisition 22.00
Finance Controllership Accounting 21.00
Finance Controllership Reconciliation 13.00
HR/payroll processes 7.00
Marketing & Consumer Sales/ Statement Process 7.00
Operational Impact
Function / Process Operational
Norway
Function / Process Overall Criticality Rating
Originate 89.50
Collections 88.17
Marketing 86.73
Customer Service 73.88
IT 73.05
Finance 67.50
Risk 58.57
HR 42.50
Sales 40.00
Legal & Compliance 37.50
Sweden
Function / Process Overall Criticality Rating
Operations 100.23
B2B Sales / Instore Origination Process 92.73
Marketing & Consumer Sales/ DTC Acquisition 92.73
Underwriting (NBSM process) 85.30
IT 74.52
Marketing & Consumer Sales/ Statement Process 63.20
Outgoing payments (manual) 55.37
Incoming Payments 50.60
Risk Fraud 50.10
Risk Fermat Process 37.20
A/P process 34.87
HR/payroll processes 34.87
Legal & Compliance/AML transaction monitoring 34.50
Finance Controllership Accounting 32.50
Finance Controllership Reconciliation 26.50
Norway
Sweden
Appendix G HP Servers
Source : GEMB
1 Nordic Production
EAI
MYSESWAPPCL01
MYSESWAPPCL02
gemoney.fi
GECOM01
GECOM02
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
GENET.fi
GECOM01
GECOM02
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
OASIX
IIS/Connect Direct/RoboFTP
DMZFTP
Loan Calc
BAT
Websphere, DB2
GEUNXPROD
(blank)
MYSESWLOGIX
2 Denmark : Production
acceptcard.dk
GECOM01
GECOM02
GEEPI01
GEEPI02
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
bolia.dk
GECOM01
GECOM02
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
elaan.dk
GECOM01
GECOM02
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
elbodan
CARBONIX
GECOM01
GECOM02
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
KEVLARIX
OASIX
gemoneybank.dk
GECOM01
GECOM02
GEEPI01
GEEPI02
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
online.dk
GECOM01
GECOM02
GEEPI01
GEEPI02
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
online.dk
GESQL01
GESQL02
Workflow
MYSESWWF02
3 Norway : Production
CWC
CARBONIX
eArchive
MYNOSWSVG1DOC01
Extranet
GECOM01
GECOM02
GEEPI01
GEEPI02
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
FLS Fusion
CARBONIX
KEVLARIX
MYSESWW3IA
MYSESWW3iB
OASIX
gekundservice.no
CARBONIX
GECOM01
GECOM02
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
KEVLARIX
IBM Content Management
MYSESWNOCM00
MYSESWNOCM01
MYSESWNOCM02
IVR NO
MYSESWNOS2SA
MYSESWNOS2SB
Markemy Server Norway
MYSESWGCMSAPPNO
Online.no
GECOM01
GECOM02
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
Origo
GEEXTW11
GEEXTW12
GEINTW11
GEINTW12
MYSESWDB20A
MYSESWDB20B
MYSESWDB21A
MYSESWDB21B
MYSESWINTBTS01A
MYSESWINTBTS01B
MYSESWINTREP
MYSESWINTWEB01A
MYSESWINTWEB01B
MYSESWORIBIZ01A
MYSESWORIBIZ01B
MYSESWORINB01A
MYSESWORINB01B
MYSESWORIPDF01A
MYSESWORIPDF01B
MYSESWORIPDF01C
SEP Server
MYSEVWPOSTIX
WebShops
CARBONIX
GECOM01
GECOM02
GEEPI01
GEEPI02
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
KEVLARIX
MYSESWW3IA
MYSESWW3iB
OASIX
Workflow
MYSESWWF01
(blank)
MYSESWIABTS01A
MYSESWIABTS01B
4 Sweden : Production
Actimize
MYSESOACCTIX
Active Directory Server
MYSESWEURDC0041
AD NetIq Server
MYSESWFIRSTIX
Affinity
EAIBTS02
GECOM01
GECOM02
GEEPI01
GEEPI02
GESQL01
GESQL02
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
Afsol DB (NO)
SEPM04
Ansök
DMZPRINT
Aristion
MYSESWARISTIX
Aristion DB
MYSESWDB10
ARP
OASIX
ASCI
CARBONIX
KEVLARIX
MYSESWW3IA
MYSESWW3iB
OASIX
Atlas/Launchpad/Oracle
DOGMATIXCGCFGE
Automate
MYSESWTOMATIX
Backup (Dataprotector)
MYSESWDP00
Biz Tool
GECOM01
GECOM02
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
Bridger
MYSEVWBRIDGERIX
CBO
MYSESWW3IA
MYSESWW3iB
Citrix
ASTERIX
COMIX
IDEFIX
MYSESVCTX000
MYSESWCTX000
MYSESWCTX01
MYSESWCTX02
MYSESWCTX03
MYSESWCTX04
MYSESWCTX60
MYSESWCTX61
Citrix Metaframe Server
MYSESWNIKIX
MYSESWNILIX
Citrix server
CIRIXONECGCFGE
OUTIX
SESTO21CFLSGE
Citrix; IIS
MYSESWCWB01
CWC
APP
DHCP/RIS/Safeboot
SCARIX
Easy Contract
CARBONIX
GECOM01
GECOM02
GEEPI01
GEEPI02
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
KEVLARIX
MYSESWW3IA
OASIX
SS-01
SS-02
Faxserver/Automate/Bankomate
MYSESWFAXIX
File Server
MYSESWGIGANTIX
STORIX
Filemaker
MYSESVWAPP09
Fileserver
SESTO10CFLSGE
FLS
CARBONIX
KEVLARIX
MYSESWW3IA
MYSESWW3iB
OASIX
Gecko
ALFIX
BETIX
GECOM01
GECOM02
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
MYSESWAPPCL01
MYSESWAPPCL02
MYSESWW3iB
Gecko - Admin
BAT
Gecko - External
BAT
Gecko - Internal
BAT
gemoneybank.se
GECOM01
GECOM02
GEEPI01
GEEPI02
GESQL01
GESQL02
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
GOS
EAIBTS02
GECOM01
GECOM02
GEEPI01
GEEPI02
GESQL01
GESQL02
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
IIS, Visual Source Safe
EBIZWEB
IIS,SQL Server
IVR01CGCFGE
IVR02CGCFGE
IIS;Optus Fax Server;
METRIXCGCFGE
internal web
MYSESWW3iB
Internet Bank
CARBONIX
GECOM01
GECOM02
GEEPI01
GEEPI02
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
KEVLARIX
OASIX
SS-01
SS-02
Internet Security Scanner
MYSESWGETAMIX
ITAM/CA unicenter
MYSESWINVENTIX
MYSESWVIVIX
Lotus Domino Server / PostgreSQL
BUTTERIXCGCFGE
INTRANIX
Markemy
MYSESWREMUS
MYSESWROMULUS
MOM Server
KATANIX
MS TeamFoundation Server
MYSESWMTFS01
MYSESWMTFSB01
MS TFS
MYSESWKODIX
NBSM
MYSEDVW2635
Networker
BACKUPIX
NOS
CARBONIX
GECOM01
GECOM02
GEEPI01
GEEPI02
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
KEVLARIX
MYSESWW3IA
MYSESWW3iB
OASIX
Nova Batch Server
MYSEVWALPIX
Nova Batch Server; Nova
TORIX
Office Server Malmoe
SEMAL01CFLSGE
OFS
BAT
Opalis/Connect Direct/RoboFTP
FTHPROD
Oracle
MARTIX
TSUNAMIX
Oracle Application Server
MYSESWSERVIX
Partner Online
GEWEB01
GEWEB02
OASIX
Print Server
PRINTIX
Probe SM
MYSESWPROBIX
SAS
SUMPIX
Softgrid
MYSESWSFT01
MYSESWSFT02
Softgrid Sequenser
MYSEVWAPP04
SQL Server
MAN
SQL Server, 3 instances
SQLIX
Topaz monitoring Agent
TOPAZIX
Webtrends
SMARTIX
WMWARE ESX
CADABRIX
MYSESVMW03
MYSESVMW04
MYSESWQBIX
MYSESWVIRTIX
WMWARE GSX
ABRIX
Workflow
FLOWIX
VSS
SEVSVSS01
WSUS DB/App
MYSESWGETAFIX
(blank)
BAT
CARBONIX
FRONTIX
HAVRIX
KEVLARIX
KORNIX
MYSESWCACTI
MYSESWRDP01
MYSESWSOAP01
MYSESWSOAP02
MYSEVWAPP00
MYSEVWCTXMGMT
SESTO19CFLSGE
SESTO20CFLSGE
SMARTCENTER01
C:\PENTIRE\CUST\
HP Synstar GBC\GEMB\BIA\BIA Documents\BIA Spreadsheet GEMB 001.xls