In an interview with Biztech2.0, Rohit Verma, Assistant VP - Corporate Security and Business Continuity, Deutsche Bank talks about the importance of business continuity management and steps that an organisation can take to have a plan in place to deal with unforeseen situations.

What is Business Continuity Management (BCM)?

BCM is essentially about being prepared to face various risks such as political uncertainty, natural disasters, unrest, strike and the like. We have to determine how all these situations impact the day-to-day business and how well prepared the organisation is to face these situations.

How important is BCM?

In a normal scenario where everything is fine, not much thought is given to the fact that something could go wrong sometime. There could be a scenario where there is an outage while the employees are in the office, which might require the entire office to be evacuated at once. If such a situation arises, then the dilemma of relocating the people to another location comes up. The issues of operations, financial implications, regulations and reputation also come into the picture. BCM from this perspective is critical, as it gives a clear picture of the kind of risks a particular organisation might face in the future and how well prepared an organisation must be, to meet those risks.

What BCM initiatives has Deutsche Bank taken?

We have identified critical processes across the organisation, identified the critical staff and have created a BCM recovery site for the numerous departments within the bank. Users can also go to the recovery site and test it out for themselves. If something goes wrong, then our users know exactly what steps should be taken to rectify the problem.

What were the challenges that arose while leveraging these initiatives?

The challenges were more in terms of BCM awareness. Not many people are aware of what exactly BCM is. In terms of Deutsche Bank, the employees are still better aware and informed, and have made
adequate arrangements to avoid being severely impacted. Awareness needs to be brought in by means of education and continuous training across the industry.

Could you elaborate on employee acceptance and awareness Of BCM strategies?

Initially employees were not aware of BCM. You have to make them see what a scenario will be like where BCM would be of importance. For this, you have to give them a hypothetical situation, where
everyone has to be evacuated and they are left without an office and any infrastructure. In other words, you have to give them an extreme situation where they are left absolutely helpless. The impact has to be seen from an all round perspective.