BSI ID: G 0.11

Nowadays, hardly any institution operates without service providers such as suppliers or outsourcing providers. If organisational units are dependent on service providers, the performance of tasks can be impaired by failures of external services. The partial or complete failure of an outsourcing service provider or supplier can have a significant impact on business continuity, especially in critical business processes. There are various causes for such failures, such as insolvency, unilateral termination of the contract by the service provider or supplier, operational problems due to natural forces or staff shortages. Problems can also arise if the services provided by the service provider do not meet the client's quality requirements. It should also be noted that service providers often use subcontractors to provide their services to the client. Disruptions, quality defects and failures on the part of subcontractors can therefore indirectly lead to impairments for the client. Business processes at the client may also be affected by failures of the service provider's IT systems or communication links to the service provider. If necessary, it may be very difficult to retrieve outsourced processes, for example because the outsourced procedures are not sufficiently documented or because the previous service provider does not support retrieval.

Examples:

• A company has installed its servers in a data centre belonging to an external service provider. After a fire in this data centre, the company's finance department was no longer able to operate. This resulted in considerable financial losses for the company.

• A company's just-in-time production was dependent on the supply of operating resources from external service providers. After a truck broke down at the service provider's premises, the delivery of urgently needed parts was drastically delayed. As a result, a number of customers could not be supplied on time.

• A bank handled all its cash transports with a cash-in-transit company. The cash-in-transit company unexpectedly filed for bankruptcy. It took several days to arrange a new cash-in-transit company and plan the routes. This caused major problems and delays in supplying and disposing of cash at the bank branches.