Don’t be alone

Defining resilience is a starting point.

It’s a word used all too frequently these days. Problematically, it can be a catch-all for anything and everything that your firm has issues with. Don’t fall into that trap.

Clearly defining business services delivered to customers, partners and counterparties and their relative criticality is a necessary step.

However, defining the plausibility of severe disruption scenarios that a firm seeks to be resilience against will help formulate a greater purpose and better align stakeholders.

I can help you define operational resilience for your firm to ensure a foundation is established.

Engaging the right stakeholders in the right way with the right context is critical.

Resilience is a mutli-disciplined challenge that spans organisational silos, structures and terminologies - and often surfaces competing priorities that can tax an already stressed workforce.

There can easily be a disconnect between the concept of resilience as a strategic imperiative and what the execution path should actually be.

Engaging corporate boards, operations practitioners, technologists, risk professionals, audit and compliance colleagues and of course regulators is essential but not always easy.

I know it, I’ve done it, so I can help you do it too.

Having an Operational Resilience framework is essential to ensuring success. But it can’t only be conceptual, it needs to be put into practice and relevant to the firm.

I’ve seen too many frameworks that look great on paper yet aren’t used to guide a firm through execution to yield tangible outcomes..

From governance to reporting. Threat assessment to response and recovery capabilities. Services delivered to vulnerabilities. Operational assets to geographical footprint.

I can help you define or enrich a suitable framework for your firm that can be put into practice.

Beyond defining your business services, mapping the the assets essential for their delivery - the supply chain - is an imperative. But mapping can be fraught with pitfalls.

Balancing the right level of granularity vs. effort and maintenance burden is important to ensuring relevant insights and value.

If done right, this incredibly useful asset can not just support your resilience journey but can yield insights into a firms overall operating model and beyond..

So don’t jump in before you know where you’re going.

I can help you clearly think through what’s right for your firm. I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t.

We all know the real event that impacts your firm isn’t the one that you last or ever tested.

So how do you ensure the testing your firm undertakes truly improves overall resilience? You may also have your clients wanting to do more testing with you, or you seek to to do more with your own third-parties.

I see this as one of the greatest resilience challenges facing firms today.

However, there are ways to maximize the value of testing time by deploying a range of types of testing. Micro-simulations that complement more traditional testing is one technique.

I can guide you with what’s right for your firm.

So how do you represent the resilience of your firm to the satisfaction of all stakeholders?

What is the right level of detail that communicates a complex topic to these audiences? What can be quantitive vs. qualitative? How do you articulate residual risk? What are the right dimensions to report on?

Beyond clear, concise and accurate, information needs to be contextualised for the audience. Board reporting vs management reporting is different but must be aligned.

I can help you define an information approach that works for your firm.