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How Financial Entities Can Turn IT Outages Into Strategic Advantages
IT outages are a growing concern for financial entities, threatening both operational resilience and regulatory compliance. These disruptions don’t just create downtime—they also present unique opportunities for learning and transformation. By addressing common challenges and adopting forward-thinking strategies, organizations can turn outages into stepping stones for achieving operational excellence.
Breaking down the barriers to incident management
A lack of clear ownership
A lack of clear ownership during an outage can lead to delays, confusion, and increased risks to compliance. With downtime costing financial firms up to $400,000 per hour, establishing clear roles is non-negotiable.1 Defining responsibilities in advance allows teams to act decisively, minimizing the financial and operational impact. Collaboration across departments further ensures silos become strengths rather than obstacles, boosting the efficiency of incident management.
Putting an end to process bottlenecks
Manual processes often falter under the pressure of high-stakes incidents, leading to costly errors and delays. Automating repetitive and error-prone tasks helps mitigate these risks while freeing teams to focus on strategic initiatives. Streamlining workflows with automation not only enhances compliance but also significantly improves operational efficiency.
Connecting the dots across systems
Fragmented visibility between legacy and modern systems hampers the ability to respond swiftly and effectively to outages. Financial entities should focus on using a diverse range of monitoring tools tailored to their needs. The key is to implement solutions that can reduce noise and alert volume, allowing teams to prioritize and address the most critical incidents first. With comprehensive visibility, companies can reduce downtime, mitigate risks, and ensure compliance with evolving regulatory standards.
Shifting to proactive and scalable solutions
Catching vulnerabilities before they escalate
Responders often struggle to navigate multiple monitoring tools and decipher disparate alerts, which slows response times. Solutions like PagerDuty automate the visibility of incidents from various monitoring systems and automate diagnostic testing, enabling teams to prioritize and address critical issues effectively. These proactive measures align with compliance mandates such as DORA while creating a solid foundation for efficient audits and long-term operational stability.
Centralizing automation efforts
Implementing automation standards while giving teams autonomy in tool selection helps balance flexibility with efficiency. Establishing a Center of Excellence (COE) for automation aligns initiatives across the organization, ensures consistent workflows, and fosters continuous improvement.
Harnessing institutional knowledge
Promoting cross-departmental collaboration transforms silos into knowledge hubs, enabling teams to leverage their unique expertise for better incident management. Effective communication and shared learning drive continuous improvements in both compliance and operational practices.
Standardizing automation
Automation and AI are powerful tools for scaling compliance and operational efficiency. Standardized automation reduces human error, while AI-driven operations (AIOps) enable teams to respond to incidents faster and with greater precision. These technologies provide a future-ready framework that supports resilience and agility in the face of evolving challenges.
Enhancing the customer experience
Generative AI plays a pivotal role in improving customer support during outages. By using AI to rapidly gather and summarize incident data, companies can quickly prepare accurate and timely responses, boosting customer satisfaction and building trust. By automating routine tasks, teams can focus on resolving complex issues and delivering personalized service.
Turning disruptions into strategic advantages
By prioritizing resilience, operational excellence, and compliance, financial entities can transform IT outages from challenges into opportunities. Leveraging automation, AI, and cross-functional collaboration helps organizations build robust, adaptable systems that not only meet regulatory requirements but also foster innovation and customer loyalty.
Download the PagerDuty for Financial Services solution brief or contact us to learn how PagerDuty can help your organization achieve operational excellence and compliance.
1 https://www.connectwise.com/resources/bcdr-guide/ch1-impacts-of-business-downtime