Guidelines for organizing a joint business continuity exercise: Case FATO 2021

Abstract

This thesis was written as part of studies in the Degree Programme in Safety, Security, and Risk Management at Laurea University of Applied Sciences. The purpose of this case study is to give development suggestions for organizing business continuity exercise. In addition, the exercise planning guide for FATO exercises was created as an output of this development work. The study is a development work which utilized a few scientific approaches as data collection methods: the survey and the semi-structured interviews. The theoretical framework provided many valuable insights for the development of the exercise while the interviews and the survey demonstrated the need to create a guide containing the overview and the suggestions for the development of future exercises.

FATO 2021 was a joint business continuity exercise organized as a tabletop exercise with multiple different scenarios. The exercise was organized by the Finance Pool of the National Emergency Supply Organization. The exercise required its participant organizations to practice their joint action in large disruptions and emergency conditions. There were 22 participants: banks, their stakeholders, and the authorities.

The results of the study indicate that organizing an exercise requires a coherent exercise plan and predetermined objectives and responsibilities to complete the exercise. There is a significant need for the joint business continuity exercise to test how different organizations act and communicate in disruptive events. Based on the conclusions, proposed development suggestions and the exercise guidelines were formed, and their effectiveness was validated in the individual specialist interviews. The final output was a practical guide on organizing exercise activities for the use of the Finance Pool.