By Melanie Best

DTCC has completed the "big-ticket items" that have dominated the organization's business continuity planning (BCP) agenda over the past five years. These include establishing new remote facilities and significantly accelerating the speed for replicating data among the company's multiple data centers.

"At this point, we are state of the art in business continuity, but that doesn't mean we have stopped paying attention to it," said Donald F. Donahue, DTCC president and CEO. "On the contrary, we are continually reinforcing and reassessing our continuity capabilities."

This year, DTCC is turning its attention to a diverse array of BCP initiatives. Many of these are ongoing efforts and one, preparing for an influenza pandemic, is also gaining momentum throughout the financial services industry.

Evolving responses
Pandemic planning, an emerging concern in the general corporate BCP community, marks the newest addition to DTCC's multi-faceted continuity program. DTCC has created an in-house task force dedicated to the issue. And through its membership on the Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council for Critical Infrastructure Protection and Homeland Security (FSSCC), DTCC is contributing to the work of U.S. government agencies to get critical infrastructure ready to respond to and recover from an influenza pandemic.

"We want to be prepared to address any situation that could prevent people from getting to the office," said George Perretti, DTCC managing director, Corporate Business Continuity. "We've seen from the SARS outbreaks in Asia and from other past events that workforce availability will periodically be affected, and we want to make sure our financial infrastructure is prepared to handle these situations."

The company's post-9/11 approach to preparing for business interruptions and emergencies enhances its ability to confront a pandemic, Perretti said. In the pre-9/11 world, he noted, DTCC and other financial services companies focused on being able to evacuate and relocate staff to alternate sites in the event of a natural disaster or other emergency. "Since then, we've focused on geographically dispersing our people and operations to withstand disruptions and threats."

External focus
As always, confirming the connectivity capabilities of DTCC's largest customers remains a priority. "Customers currently required to test annually with DTCC number in the low 200s," said Ken Wright, DTCC director, Corporate Business Continuity, adding that these firms account for the bulk of the business across DTC, NSCC and FICC. "All these customers are required to test connectivity between their back-up sites and DTCC's multiple data centers at least once a year." (It is not necessary to conduct tests from customers' primary sites because this occurs during the normal course of business throughout the year.)

In the area of vendor BCP - that is, ascertaining whether key vendors are capable of supplying critical goods and services during an unplanned business interruption - Wright has been collaborating with DTCC's Legal department to craft standard BCP language for inclusion in future vendor contracts.

Wright's team also drew up a vendor questionnaire covering BCP capabilities. This year, the group is distributing the questionnaire to some 175 vendors and will analyze the responses to refine the company's contingency planning.

Across the organization
Internally, DTCC will conduct 10 to 12 tabletop exercises for various sites and departments in 2007. The tabletops present participants with emergency scenarios and allow them to enact disaster-recovery actions appropriate to their business area. Among those slated for tabletops this year are the executive leadership team, teams in the Infrastructure division and command teams at the remote sites.

To keep pace with the growth of DTCC's operations abroad, DTCC will put more emphasis this year on refining and testing recovery plans for the London and Shanghai offices. "We're looking more closely at what we can do for our overseas facilities," said Wright.

"Over the years, the commitment to business continuity from DTCC's leadership team has never waned," said Perretti. "For those of us who think about these issues every day, support from the top makes our job easier." @