In the first part of our blog “Key Predictions in Operational Resilience and Business Continuity – Part 1” we covered the first two of our five key trends and predictions that we will see in 2020 and beyond.  These included financial organisations moving to be more in line with DP118 and the fact that businesses will be judged by how well they handle a disaster or crisis by their customers.

In this blog, we will cover the last 3 of our top 5 predictions that we think will come to the forefront in operational resilience and business continuity in 2020 and beyond.

3 – 2020 will be a year of action after the distractions and uncertainty of 2019

After the release of the Bank of England’s discussion paper in 2018, where much debate took place as to its contents, 2020 will be a year of action as financial institutions race to implement much of the content of the paper to help make them more operationally resilient. With many distractions and uncertainty, particularly around Brexit over the last three years, 2020 will see some significant changes.

In addition, 2020 will be a year for reviewing current Operational Resilience and business continuity provision and will see a resetting of requirements.  Many organisations placed things “on hold” as a result of the uncertainty around Brexit, and a resetting of requirements will take place in 2020 as the uncertainty finally dissipates. Brexit action plans will be deployed, and business continuity and Operational Resilience will be higher up on the agenda of the c-suite.

4 – Cyber resilience will be key to protecting businesses from risk in 2020 and beyond

Although organisations will need to reduce their cyber risk, the real necessity here will be to develop Operational Resilience. If and when they do get hit, and they will despite their best efforts, what provision do they have in place to keep their business moving in this event?

It is important to minimise the likelihood and impact of a cyber-attack, but many feel that you can’t safeguard against everything. Something will eventually slip through the net and organisations need to be sure that they can deal with the impact of an attack. How organisations handle a cyber-attack determines how well they will recover as a business economically. Being able to respond and respond quickly in the event of a disaster is extremely important.

5 – People work better with people

Despite huge advances in remote collaboration people still work more effectively when physically working together.

This effect is most pronounced at time of disaster, and although many can work from home, a modernised Work Area Recovery Service is still a critical component of resilient infrastructure.

When combined with ITDR, Work Area Recovery provision is ideal at delivering an alternative work environment, infrastructure and technical assistance exactly when needed.

Cyber-attacks leave offices fully intact but the business dead in the water as systems and PCs attached to those systems grind to a halt. Getting staff out of the way, over to the Recovery Centre, and in an environment where they can continue delivering the critical Business Services while IT run around reimaging and repairing the PCs and other infrastructure is a huge benefit.

To Find Out More

Download our FREE report “The Definitive 2020 Predictions Guide for Operational Resilience” to find out more about these key predictions  on our website https://fortressas.com/2020-trends-guide/.