In the financial services industry, a firm’s reputation is defined in part by the consistency of the services it provides to its clients. Many service-level mandates are won or lost on the reputation of a provider and its service. The pandemic of 2020 emphasized this once again. All firms were forced to put their business continuity capabilities to the test. Quickly, the industry was able to evaluate the cracks within a service provider based on its response to COVID-19. The industry gossip channels gave a pretty good indication as to which firms were thriving and which firms were struggling in the early days of the pandemic.
Underpinning a firm’s ability to respond in a major BCP scenario are the processes and technology that are implemented throughout the organization. Any firm that pays attention to its process and technology model has a better chance of achieving greater margins and will be able to smoothly handle industry shockwaves such as a pandemic. Process and technology are the lifeblood of any service organization; however, at times, they can be overlooked or believed to be in satisfactory condition even when business is changing at warp speed.