Operational Resilience Glossary

Glossary

All-Hazards Approach

An all-hazards approach is a strategy for business continuity planning that prepares organizations for a wide range of risks and disruptions rather than focusing on specific threats.

Bank of England — BoE

The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom (UK), who is responsible for maintaining the UK’s financial and monetary stability.

Black Swan Event

A black swan event refers to an unpredictable event with severe consequences, often characterized by its rarity and wide-reaching impact.

Business Continuity Institute — BCI

The Business Continuity Institute is the world’s leading institute for business continuity and resilience professionals, including industry certifications.

Business Impact Analysis (or Assessment) — BIA

A BIA is the process of determining the criticality of business activities and associated resource requirements to ensure operational resilience and continuity of operations during and after a business disruption.

Business Interruption

A business interruption refers to a disruption in business operations caused by external or internal incidents, leading to financial and operational losses.

Business Process Improvement — BPI

A business process improvement refers to the analysis, review, and improvement of existing business processes. This is done by mapping out business processes, identifying inefficiencies, redesigning the processes, and benchmarking to initial metrics.

Center of Excellence — CoE

A center of excellence is a centralized unit of dedicated people with a mission to streamline access to scarce, high-demand capabilities for rapid execution across the business. This group hones expertise in a specific subject area, standardizes best practices for wide-scale adoption, and provides thought leadership and direction in their area of expertise.​​​​​​​

Cyber Resilience

Cyber resilience refers to the ability of an organization to prepare for, respond to, and recover from cyber threats and data breaches.

Digital Operational Resilience Act — DORA

The Digital Operational Resilience Act is a European Union regulation that aims to improve the resilience of financial institutions to digital threats.

Domestic Systemically Important B​​​​​​​ank— D-SIB

A domestic systemically important bank identifies a financial institution (and the entities that support them) that could disrupt the domestic economy should it fail.

Financial Conduct Authority — FCA

The Financial Conduct Authority is an independent regulatory agency in the United Kingdom that oversees the financial services industry and whose mission is to protect consumers, ensure market stability, and promote healthy competition.

Global Systemically Important B​​​​​​​ank — G-SIB

A global systemically important bank identifies a financial institution (and those entities that support them) whose failure might trigger a financial crisis.

Impact Tolerance

An impact tolerance is the maximum tolerable level of disruption to an important business service.

Important Business Service

An important business service is a service that is provided to an external customer where if disrupted, it could pose a risk to the customer, economy, or firm’s viability.

Interdependency Mapping

Interdependency mapping is the process of identifying and documenting the activities involved in delivering important business services, including people, processes, technology, data, sites, and third parties.

Operational Resilience — Op Res

Operational resilience is the ability of an organization to deliver critical operations during and through a disruption.

Operational Risk Management — ORM

Operational risk management is a continual cyclic process that includes risk assessments, risk decision-making, and the implementation of risk-based controls, which results in acceptance, mitigation, or avoidance of risk. ORM is the oversight of operational risk, including the risk of loss resulting from inadequate or failed internal processes and systems, human factors, or external events.

Prudential Regulation Authority — PRA

The Prudential Regulation Authority is the United Kingdom’s financial regulator for banks, building societies, credit unions, insurers, and major investment firms. The PRA is part of the Bank of England and sets standards for financial institutions, supervises financial institutions, ensures the financial system operates safely and soundly, and responds to financial issues in an orderly way.

Scenario Testing

Scenario testing is the assessment of a firm’s ability to remain within its impact tolerance for each of its important business services in the event of a severe but plausible disruption of its services.

• Allows organizations to know the “now” status of important services, model “what if” scenarios, rehearse, and measure response.
• Inputs form: An inputs form gives teams the ability to input what assets (sites, teams, applications, vendors) are disrupted by an event and for how long.
• Scenario Engine: A scenario engine is an analysis engine that takes the inputs and the mapped interdependencies and computes the impact and findings.

Supply Chain Resilience

Supply chain resilience refers to the ability of a company’s supply chain to withstand and recover from disruptions.