The 24-hour society is here and with it non-stop banking, especially on the Internet. EDB Teamco AS, a specialist in advanced IT operations and services, attacks the challenges of running mission-critical banking systems round-the-clock with the help of DNV Consulting.
Says EDB Teamcos President John-Arne Haugerud, In the last four years, with the Internet banking revolution, banking has become a round-the-clock affair. Now customers have direct access to the banks systems, whereas before they had to go through a bank employee. This has exposed the internal bank systems in an entirely new fashion and has brought with it a whole new set of challenges for us.
EDB Teamco AS, a part of EDB Business Partner ASA, has more than 1,000 skilled employees and last year a turnover of nearly US$ 225 million. The company specialises in non-stop operations of critical IT solutions, and is one of the largest suppliers of these services in Scandinavia.
Discovering the weakest link
In August of this year parts of their systems suffered a three-day breakdown. It caused a wide disruption of bank services throughout Norway, especially for Internet-based banks and their users. Work was carried out night and day by EDB Teamcos employees in an all-out effort to solve the problems.
Says Haugerud, What happened in August was very unfortunate, but the real values our systems handle, such as user accounts, transaction data and the money itself, was undamaged. At one time we had 35 million transactions on hold, with new ones coming in continuously. Not one was lost or misplaced.
The event, which caused headlines in the press, has led EDB Teamco to investigate in detail its mission- critical systems, routines and security measures. Says Haugerud, Our first priority was to discover exactly what caused the problems and learn as much as possible from that experience. Second, we aim to put in place an even better business risk-management system that can pinpoint our weakest areas, so that we can deal with those in a proactive and systematic manner. Using DNV to help us in this process has been received positively by the market, our customers and our employees.
Managing risk
Business Risk Management Consulting (BRMC) is a new strategic area for DNV. Says DNV CEO Helge Midttun, It is important for DNV to expand into new markets other than those we are traditionally associated with, such as shipping and offshore. The IT industry is very dynamic, technologically advanced and capital intensive, which allows us to grow and use our unique risk methodology and competence in new and challenging ways.
DNVs Jan Thomsen is enthusiastic about working with EDB Teamco: This project is a major undertaking on the part of DNV. We have been involved from the start with the accident investigation, and now we are in the process of systematically reviewing and analysing the companys systems and routines. Finally, together with EDB Teamcos Vice President and project manager Ole Urdahl and President John-Arne Haugerud, we will develop an action plan and put in place a business risk management system.
As IT systems become increasingly complex with more and more users, the risks involved in running non-stop mission-critical IT operations will grow. Says Haugerud, There is a risk that disruptions to the complex systems we operate will happen again, much like accidents happen in other areas of life. Our goal must be to limit these to an absolute minimum.
We also need to be able to handle these possible disruptions in the best way, which entails having business risk systems, routines and effective security measures ready. Managing risk is part of our core business every hour of every day.
Pioneers on the electronic frontier
The Scandinavian countries have from the beginning shown a unique willingness to take into use the latest and hottest technology, from cell phones to the Internet and electronic banking. Norway and the United Kingdom were in fact the first countries to connect to the United States ARPANET in 1973, just four years after the start of what would eventually become the Internet we know today. This quick adoption of new technology has been fuelled not just by eager consumers, but also by pioneering companies.
EDB Teamco AS, founded in the late 1960s, has always been driven to provide the latest services for its customers. Now it finds itself positioned in the nexus of electronic commerce in Scandinavia. With the dawn of electronic money, where consumers carry digital cash in their cell phones instead of paper or metal in their wallets, this could bode well for the companys future. No word yet, though, on the risks involved. Says Haugerud, We have always been early adopters of new technology. This is not about to change.