Insight

Why this topic matters?

Across the industry, trustees and schemes are increasingly recognising that resilience planning must go beyond theoretical recovery scenarios.

Operational disruption can arise from many different sources, including:

• Cyber incidents
• Cloud or infrastructure outages
• Third-party administrator disruption
• Software failures
• Geopolitical events
• Supply chain dependencies

The impact of these events can extend far beyond IT systems alone and directly affect critical scheme functions such as:

• Pension payroll
• Member communications
• Access to trusted data
• Telephony and service channels
• Payslips and P60 production
• Trustee decision-making

As discussed during the webinar, the key concern is no longer simply restoring systems - it is protecting member outcomes during disruption.

How prepared are schemes today?

• 52% of attendees said they already have specific resilience plans in place
• 41% are actively exploring options
• 5% are waiting for further guidance before acting
• Only 2% said they had not previously considered the issue

The results showed a clear shift across the industry from awareness toward practical resilience planning.

What would your first priority be during a serious cyber incident?

• 67% prioritised payroll continuity and recovery options
• 17% focused first on contingency governance and decision-making
• 8% prioritised member communications
• 8% focused on activating independent data access arrangements

The discussion reinforced that maintaining pension payroll and protecting member outcomes remain the immediate priorities during disruption events.

Beyond traditional DR and BCP

One of the key themes throughout the webinar was the distinction between traditional disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity planning (BCP)and broader operational resilience planning.

While DR and BCP remain essential, the panel explored how they may not always address scenarios where access to trusted administration data itself becomes unavailable.

This led into a discussion on ARM – Administration Resilience & Mobility, Cosan’s operational resilience solution designed to provide schemes with secure, independent access to critical administration data during disruption events.

The session also explored how resilience solutions can extend beyond data storage into:

• Tested payroll continuity arrangements
• Contingency planning
• Independent recovery processes
• Support during risk transfer and buyout journeys

The full webinar recording is now available to watch on demand.

Watch Webinar

Further resources

Are Business Continuity Planning and Disaster Recovery Enough?
Download Report

ARM – Administration Resilience & Mobility data sheet
Download Data Sheet

Get in touch

If you would like to discuss any of the topics covered during the webinar or explore operational resilience planning for your scheme in more detail, please contact the Cosan team.

Operational resilience is no longer just an IT issue - it is increasingly becoming a trustee and member outcome priority

Watch the ARM resilience webinar

To access the ARM resilience webinar, please enter your details below. Once submitted, you will be able to watch the video.