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Olympic City, UK If you’re spending any time in London at the moment, it impossible not notice the amount of construction work that is underway. This ranges from the number of high profile buildings that are being built (such as The Shard, and The Cheese Grater, The Bishopsgate Tower), to an above average number of roadworks projects that are underway to ensure that the capital’s roads are not being dug up during the 2012 Olympics that opens on July 27th.
A Disaster by Any Other Name The clue is in the name really, but many people consider Business Continuity (BC) to be keeping a business running after a crisis or incident (see our previous post The Biggest Secret of BCP). This is of course true, but the definition of what makes a crisis or incident is what trips up many people.
How can we Reduce our Spend on Solvency II This is a question that is on increasingly on many lips – especially with the news that the plenary vote on the Omnibus II legislation may be further delayed (it had previously been delayed from to the 2nd July, but was further delayed at the end of last week to the 10th September 2012). There are a number of steps that firms can take to reduce the cost of their Solvency II projects, and whilst many are specific to the individual organisations, one generic approach is to start the transition from “project mode” into “business as usual” as quickly as possible.
Business Intelligence, Management Information, Data Analytics and Data Warehousing have been business buzzwords for some time but more and more organisations are recognising the value and opportunities that exist in the data that they already have or already collect. This does however have to be done sensitively, particularly when using personal information (a powerful example of this need is the example of how US retailer Target uses its data to identify pregnant women through their buying habits (New York Times Article). The old saying about gaining a single version of the truth is very much a driver for the implementation of a data warehouse…If you or others within your organisation are still saying things like “Well if I had the data to know then we could …”, or “Well those aren’t the figures that I have”, then you really need to look at your Business Intelligence Strategy.
Don’t Tell Anyone But… Do you want to know one of the best kept secret in the business continuity arena? Faced with a question like that how could you answer anything but Yes!
The Past was a Different Place In the old world of IT, the IT department would provide a few different models of devices that were allowed to connect to the corporate infrastructure, these were purchased, maintained and supported by the company, and that tended to be the way it was…Times have changed.
Top Ten Business Priorities Around this time of year there are lots of predictions or top ten lists for the coming year. One of these comes from Silicon.com in which they list the following business priorities for CIOs in the coming year:
Fraud Reaches a New High The analysis of fraud trends during 2011 by CIFAS – the UK’s Fraud Prevention Service reveals a 9% increase in the overall level of fraud in 2011
Health-Check Process We’ve just released a tool called the Solvency II Health-Check Process (HCP). HCP is a sophisticated toolkit predicated on many hundreds of pre-set, Solvency II related questions, ranging from high-level conceptual to ‘deep-dive’ detail.
The Problem Organisations have always needed to be able to move in an agile way, but in this economic climate it is even more important to be able to react quickly to an identified opportunity or issues, even if the solution requires a vendor selection or RFP process. One of Fifth Step’s clients had just such an opportunity; a board level decision required a software solution and vendor selection process to be conducted, but the decision required prompt action and there wasn’t the time to perform a traditional length RFP.
Many industries have their own shorthand and business continuity planning and management is no different. If you’re confused by BCP, BCM, RTO, DR RPO then this glossary will help you finally cut through the jargon. If you still need help then contact our Business Continuity Team who will be glad to help.
Do you have enough capacity? Production of hard drives have been dramatically impacted by the major floods in Thailand. Western Digital (a major manufacturer of hard drives) says that it believes there will be a world-wide shortage of 60 million hard drives in the December quarter. This is already impacting sales of certain hard drives, and is likely to get worse before it gets better. This is likely to impact the cost of storage as well the availability (on the basis of supply and demand).
What does this mean for Solvency II? The European Parliament has delayed the vote on the final rules for the Omnibus II directive until April 2012. EIOPA can’t start its public consultation on the draft implementing technical standards before the publication of Omnibus II, hence the potential impact on Solvency II. The proposals for the Omnibus II Directive include changes to align Solvency II with the Lisbon Treaty as well as making changes to reflect the EU’s new supervisory structure. There no mention at this time that the date for Solvency II compliance will be further delayed.
How are Captives Different? Many people working in the insurance sector of Financial Services recognise that captives are different to other parts of the industry. They’re established by their customers to serve their own particular insurance requirements, meaning that they don’t sell to consumers or to businesses outside of their affiliates.This has an obvious effect on the operational drivers and structures of such companies, and their resultant asset/liability management and governance strategies have been developed for this particular type of business. Reporting requirements have also historically been an area where captives and other insurers have differed, with other insurers having, in particular, a far greater public reporting burden.