Public awareness to invest has been improving over the last decade and brought a positive impact to the country’s financial industry. Securities companies have grown exponentially with a tight competition. One of the leading securities company in Indonesia is PT Mandiri Sekuritas. The company has been rapidly growing across the country with 25 branches in 14 major cities and catering over 26 thousand customers as of 2013.

One of the factors that contributed to Mandiri Sekuritas success is its compliance as a member of the exchange (AB). This is reflected from the company’s ability to fulfill the Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Remote Trading facility and infrastructure.

BCP is a guideline for AB to identify and reduce risks as well as responding to disaster with the right measure. With the BCP, planning on disaster relieve, operational during critical situation, and other actions to bring back business activity to normal is prepared.

No Disturbance

Managing Director Mandiri Sekuritas C. Paul Tehusijarana sees the urgency to have BCP not just because it is required by the regulation but also as an important aspect for the operation of a modern securities company as well as to bring customer comfort.

Paul says that of Mandiri Sekuritas going concern should be guaranteed even at the most critical situation. This needs a good and high tech infrastructure support that is also flexible in meeting future business needs.

“That’s one thing that can’t be negotiated. Moreover the supervision of securities had shifted from the Stock Market and Financial Institution Supervisory Agency (Bapepam-LK) to the Financial Service Authority (OJK). The authority regulation related with IT puts customer comfort first, which previously seems not as urgent,” says Paul.

Since customer comfort becomes priority, “We will do anything to serve our customers without any disturbance at any given time,” Paul adds.

The company also began to see the importance of a standard protocol that could guarantee the continuity of business process in any given situation. The previous system is no longer reliable as partner network continue to expand.

One time, Mandiri Sekuritas’ Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) went down and fail to provide backup power during power outage. “This was intolerable, UPS should provide backup power during outage,” says Paul. Despite the problem only occurred for a few minutes the loss potential was great, as it might cause failures to other devices.

Help from a Competent Party

Mandiri Sekuritas drafted ten BCP’s standard procedures, from BCP activation procedure, Emergency Respond Procedure, Operation during Crisis, Recovery Procedure, IT Recovery Procedure, Infrastructure Recovery Procedure, HR Recovery Procedure, Disaster Recovery Center Operation During Normal Condition, Communication During Crisis Procedure, to IT Maintenance in Normal and Crisis Situation Procedure.

BCP’s evaluation stage, risk analysis, and business impact analysis are the inputs during the BCP maintenance. Meanwhile, the output is the BCP’s strategy and document based on the latest Mandiri Sekuritas condition.

During the drafting process, Mandiri Sekuritas worked with PT Mitra Integrasi Informatika (MII) who acts as the frontline of Metrodata Group IT solution business. All this time, MII had partnered with global it solution providers in hardware, software, and services.

Mandiri Sekuritas apply several important criteria in choosing the BCP drafting partner. “We need a person or an institution who can do more than just talking, but to finish the project,” says Paul.

Turns out it is the right decision to partner with MII. Paul says he is satisfied with the performance and result given. Both also had a good cooperation.

High BCM Maturity Score

BCP drafting process began in March 2013 and completed in December 2013. “It was faster than we expected. In the beginning we expect it to complete in January 2014,” says Paul.

The result was satisfying. Before BCP drafting, Mandiri Sekuritas book a maturity Business Continuity Management (BCM) score of 1.32 during early assessment. The score represent the quality of the initial stage based on standard from Global Technology Audit Guide.

After BCP was drafted, the score jumped to 3.6 – exceeding the maturity level required by BEI, which are 3.0. The score was also quite high for a company that recently applies BCP. As an illustration, score 4 is given to company that conduct routine checking on BCM and valuation details on control process that has been documented and reported. Meanwhile, the score of 5 is given when BCM provide quantitative input to improve a company’s going concern process.

Paul expect that with the BCP and the investment to implement it, Mandiri Sekuritas could open a bigger opportunity in providing disturbance-free service towards its customer.