Process Management: A Cornerstone for Strengthening Operational Resilience

In today’s fast-paced business world, companies are feeling the heat more than ever. With the quick shift to digital processes management, dependence on third-party services, and a surge in cyberattacks, managing operations has become quite challenging. Events like the 2008 financial crisis, IT outages, and significant data breaches serve as stark reminders of how these disruptions can severely damage customer trust and impact entire industries.

Tougher Regulatory Standards

In light of these vulnerabilities, regulatory agencies are stepping up with stricter requirements. A notable example is the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), which requires financial institutions and service providers in the EU to meet high resilience standards by January 2025. Other regions are following suit, encouraging businesses to adopt strong risk management practices, maintain continuity in essential operations, manage ICT risks effectively, and carry out resilience testing.

The Challenges Organizations Encounter

Meeting these regulatory requirements presents several challenges for organizations:

• Inadequate Documentation: Many businesses find it difficult to document their IT infrastructure and operational processes thoroughly.
• Breaking Down Silos: Operational resilience isn’t just the job of IT or risk management anymore. Regulators are calling for a company-wide approach, which means that leaders from all departments need to be actively involved.
• Data Complexity: With risks arising from both internal systems and third-party providers, organizations must weave together a diverse range of data into a cohesive framework. This task can feel overwhelming for many.

How Process Management Can Help

A unified process model can be a game-changer in tackling these challenges. By clearly mapping out the organization’s processes and linking them to essential operational data, companies can create a “ground truth” model—a shared understanding that everyone can refer to. The Process Inventory Framework provides a practical approach, helping businesses enhance collaboration and manage risks more effectively across all departments.

Creating a Process Inventory

The first step in developing this model is to conduct interviews with people at all levels of the organization, beginning with leadership. By turning their insights into standardized process names (using a simple verb-noun format), you can build a comprehensive inventory. This approach results in a taxonomy that not only outlines the organization’s activities but also includes essential details like ownership and how each process aligns with specific products or services.

Unifying Operational Data

Many companies have a wealth of operational data but often face challenges due to fragmented information. To tackle this issue, businesses need to bring together data from various systems, vendors, and processes into one centralized repository. By linking this data to a unified process model, organizations can ensure consistency and gain a comprehensive view of their operations.

How ARIS Enhances Operational Resilience

ARIS provides an exceptional platform that supports a unified approach to operational resilience and is equipped with powerful tools to manage the complexities of business processes. Here’s how ARIS stands out:

• Process Modeling: It offers a well-organized taxonomy that gives stakeholders a clear understanding of how processes work.
• Data Integration: ARIS connects essential operational data—like IT systems and third-party vendors-with the processes they support through comprehensive libraries.
• Impact Analysis: The platform allows users to visualize the relationships between resources and processes, giving IT and risk teams valuable insights to prioritize their controls effectively.
• Process Mining: With real-time insights into process performance, ARIS highlights discrepancies between how processes are supposed to operate and how they actually do.
• Governance: It includes workflow and governance features that help keep the process inventory current and accurate.

Enhancing Collaboration Across Functions

With this model in place, collaboration between different functions can become much smoother:

• Business Leaders can pinpoint the processes that are essential for the company’s success.
• IT Departments can evaluate the infrastructure that supports these key processes and determine where resilience measures need to be implemented.
• Risk Managers can look at processes from a unified, business-focused perspective, making it easier to identify, assess, and report risks.
• Testers can outline the scope for resilience testing, ensuring that all critical processes are included.
• Third-party risk Management Teams can gain a clearer understanding of how external vendors contribute to essential processes.
• Incident Managers can swiftly identify the processes and resources needed during a disruption.

Connecting Processes with Risk Data

For businesses to ensure accurate reporting, it’s essential to integrate their process taxonomy with their risk repository, whether that’s part of a Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) platform or another system. This approach creates a unified view of risk across all three lines of defense, giving executives and regulators a complete picture of the risk landscape.

Keeping the Process Inventory Up to Date

As organizations grow and change, their process inventories need to adapt as well. Creating a Process Center of Excellence (CoE) helps ensure that processes are consistently updated, verified, and aligned with business shifts. This dedicated team can also oversee the supporting infrastructure and governance standards, keeping everything running smoothly.

Beyond Resilience: The Wider Impact on the Organization

The advantages of this model reach well beyond just operational resilience. A well-maintained process inventory enhances strategic planning, facilitates effective transformation initiatives, boosts operational excellence, and creates a more agile IT environment that aligns with business objectives.

Conclusion: A Smart Investment for Lasting Success

Investing time and resources into developing and maintaining this process model may require some upfront effort, but the benefits are substantial. By enhancing resilience, satisfying regulators, and better-protecting customers, this approach provides long-term value that far exceeds the initial costs.