Market Impact and Lessons Learned from the Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19)

The following questions and should take about 20 minutes
to complete

Question Title

* 1. Kindly indicate the type of organization you work for (check one):

Application service provider

Central counter party (CCP)

Consulting and professional services

Crypto trading platform

Equities, options or futures exchange

FinTech solution provider

Investment bank/FCM/swap dealer

Investment management firm

Law firm

Proprietary trading firm

Regulator or regulatory services

Other (please specify)

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* 2. Does your firm’s business continuity plan (BCP) have a pandemic preparedness and response plan component?

Yes

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* 3. Approximately when did your firm invoke or enact it’s pandemic BCP:

December 2019, after the initial Wuhan cases were confirmed

January 2020, after the WHO declared the Coronavirus a global emergency

February 2020, after the escalation of media coverage of the global spread of the infections and fatalities

March 2020, after the CDC initiated criteria for confirming cases and POTUS declared it a national emergency

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* 4. When did your firm begin to communicate with its staff about a response plan?

January 2020

February 2020

March 2020

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* 5. When did your firm begin to socially distance the staff, either by splitting critical functions across offices/geographic sites and/or working from home/remote telecommuting?

January 2020

February 2020

March 2020

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* 6. Which of the following preparedness and response actions did your firm employ? (check all that apply)

Activated our incident management team and created a virtual war room

Initiated staff pandemic awareness and personal hygiene training

Activated social distancing via remote work sites/telecommuting

Conducted regular and ad-hoc conference calls with staff, clients, counter parties, exchanges, service providers etc.

Stepped up regular cleaning of office facilities, including desktops, conference and meeting rooms, bathrooms etc.

Discontinued use of in-house fitness center and/or cafeteria/food service areas

Upgraded our VPN, Cisco, Citrix and/or remote desktop infrastructures and remote access capabilities

Upgraded key managers or sales/traders’ home computing set ups

Participated on regular conference call updates with state and local health agencies, industry associations

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* 7. Does your firm have an alternate office location(s) to distance the staff and continue to conduct business

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* 8. How did your firm reach out to clients? (check all that apply)

Instant Messenger

Text

Social Media

Pre-recorded phone message

Direct phone calls

Web site postings

All of the above

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* 9. How did your firm reach out to the staff? (check all that apply)

Instant Messenger

Text

Pre-recorded phone message

Direct phone calls

Web site postings

All the above

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* 10. Did your staff have problems with teleconferencing and collaboration tools (e.g., GoToMeeting, Hangouts, Skype, Slack, Teams, WebEx, Zoom) or remote connectivity via VPN, terminal servers, Cisco or Citrix remote access servers?

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* 11. How would you rank your firm’s overall state of preparedness to respond to the disruption (Rank from 1-5 where 1= Not Well Prepared and 5=Very Prepared)?

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* 12. How would you grade the overall preparation and support from your key service providers? (rank from 1-5 where 1= Not Well Prepared and 5= Very Prepared)

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* 13. After enacting the BCP and distancing the staff, did your firm conduct business without disruption?

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* 14. Did you have staff that were directly or indirectly infected with COVID-19 (family members or significant others) that took them offline so they could not temporarily perform their work function?

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* 15. If your firm has multiple domestic or international office
locations, how did you manage the rolling rate of
infections/emergency orders/business closures across
these cities/countries?

Monitored the advice from local health authorities and the gradual lifting of emergency orders

Drafted a plan to potentially address the impact of a subsequent 2nd wave of infections

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* 16. What types of disruptions did your firm encounter (check all that are applicable)?

Network bandwidth/degradation of services when working at home

If the office remained open, we had disruptions with availability of janitorial staff to clean the facilities on a regular basis, trash collection/recycling and disposal or mail/express mail

Public transportation disruptions (trains, subway, buses)

Some essential staff that were required to report to the office had difficulty with access/were challenged by local police for travel authorization letters

Logistical challenges with food delivery and takeout

Outsourced service providers were impacted by their local area power/telecom disruptions or degradation of services

Systems processing and data storage capacity constraints as a result of the excessive trading-related message rates (market data trades and quotes) and higher message traffic

Lack of liquidity providers at markets and exchanges

Order flow providers

Key service providers (internet, telecom, market data etc.)

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* 17. Does your firm have an emergency notification system (ENS) or call tree system?

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* 18. How did your key managers (e.g., the incident managers)
respond to the emergency? Please specify:

Invoked the pandemic BCP and followed the strategy previously established by the firm

Monitored the media and local conditions, making some tactical adjustments as the situation unfolded

Updated HR guidelines for managing essential, non-essential staff

Conducted regular and ad-hoc conference calls to collaborate on the response

Provided travel authorization letters for key staff in critical support functions who were required to report to the office

All the above

Other (please specify)

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* 19. Did your firm coordinate its response with state or local health agencies, regulators and the building management company etc.?

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* 20. Does your firm have designated emergency response teams?

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* 21. How much did your firm leverage staff/services from outside the U.S. or in other U.S. cities during the disruption?

A Lot

Some

None

A Lot

Some

None

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* 22. How often does your firm conduct BC/DR testing (Please check one)?

Monthly

Quarterly

Semi-annually

Annually

Ad hoc

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* 23. Has your firm conducted staff BC/DR training drills for all
locations?

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* 24. Has your firm previously conducted remote workforce
connectivity, access and telecommuting for all locations?

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* 25. If yes to #24, how frequently have drills been conducted:

Monthly

Quarterly

Semi-Annually

Annually

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* 26. Unlike sudden-onset disasters, the global spread of the
pandemic dominated the news for weeks prior to major impacts in the U.S.

How do you rate your firm’s preparedness and actions, given the lead time? (Based on the lead time for warnings please rank from 1-5 where 1= Not Well Prepared and 5= Very Prepared):

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* 27. Did your firm make any adjustments to its BCP preparedness and responses between the time that the WHO declared it a global emergency (Jan 30) and the time your plan was invoked and staff mobilized?

If yes, what changes were made:

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* 28. In retrospect, what worked well for your firm (check all that apply):

We planned for the worst case; the staff was prepared and responded well under the circumstances; testing of staff, infrastructure and systems paid off

Our management and incident management teams provided clear guidance and direction, delegated tactical decision making to team leaders

We made tactical adjustments to our plan, as the virus situation and market conditions changed

Remote access and telecommuting worked well

Our technology infrastructure held up as expected

We frequently and regularly communicated with our remote workforce to discuss the state of the business and to assess their wellbeing

We staggered conference call time slots to not be impacted by degradation of service, service congestion and responsiveness

Regular communications with staff, clients and counter parties was very effective

We had a process for capturing and reporting staff health and wellness issues

We had staff that self-quarantined, out of an abundance of caution

We quickly configured VPN tunnels and deployed robust workstations to managers or trading staff homes that required them

Other (please specify)

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* 29. What did not work well (check all that apply):

We did not anticipate nor plan for such a widespread, catastrophic event and the dynamic impacts from accompanying emergency orders and resultant workforce reductions

We did not anticipate that multiple things could all go wrong at the same time

Our incident management/crisis management process did not function as we expected

Our staff was not properly prepared for the magnitude of the event

We had staff that tested positive for COVID-19

We had staff fatalities

We had multiple staff that self-quarantined

We did not have a formal process to track staff health and wellness issues

Our remote teams did not function smoothly; those staff that had not previously worked remotely were challenged

We encountered network bandwidth and degradation of service challenges for remote workforce

Our infrastructure could not keep up with the demands from remote users

Call forwarding of office phones was not as seamless as we expected

We underestimated the needs and scope of critical functions that could/could not be performed or supported remotely

We had an unusually large amount of calls from clients and could not serve them as promptly and efficiently as possible

Our help desk staff was severely challenged by the constant and heavy amount of problem calls

We had challenges effectively managing those staff with compliance oversight requirements

Key connectivity and access to large scale data sets from remote sites exceeded our software-based VPN capabilities

There were conflicting messages from management to essential, non-essential staff

Remote work impeded the staff’s ability to closely collaborate and cooperate

We were challenged in trying to procure, configure and deploy laptop computers and workstations to critical staff and sales/traders

Those staff that had to work in the office were challenged by the lack of food service providers/closed restaurants

We were not able to pick up or forward any mail/express mail packages

Building facilities services (cleaning, housekeeping, trash removal etc.) and outsourced services were adversely impacted by emergency orders and their own staff’s healthcare needs or inability to commute

Other (please specify)

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* 30. What part of the disruption was least expected/planned for (i.e., what was the biggest, most unpleasant surprise):

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* 31. What was the biggest misstep made in planning and preparing for this disruption:

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* 32. What was the biggest misstep made in responding to this disruption?

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* 33. What areas does your firm plan to make changes to going
forward (check all applicable)?

Develop a report of actions taken, lessons learned etc., and a plan to address/mitigate short-term and long-term issues, risks and recommendations

Reschedule or postpone large scale meetings, events and conferences to later in the year/next year

Document the pros and cons of a remote work force under this adverse scenario

Review of all key facilities, services providers and infrastructures that support the business

Develop closer ties and communications with key clients, vendors and suppliers

Develop a plan to regularly test remote access infrastructures, collaboration tools and remote workforce capabilities

Update HR guidelines as they apply to managing a remote workforce of essential and non-essential personnel, needs for collaboration etc.

Review and update emergency communications tools and procedures

Review and update client emergency communications plans

Identify the key connectivity and data needs for users of large data sets and complex data operations for those in revenue-generating functions

Increase budgets and spending on remote access infrastructure, collaboration tools and network capabilities

Increase spending on overall BC/DR planning and preparedness, checklists for the remote workforce and new approaches to mitigate operational risks

Increase staff training on BCP strategy and tactics

Revisit key business functions via business impact analysis reviews to identify tasks that can be done standalone, versus those that are highly collaborative

Increased the shift in client-facing functions to digital formats (contact-less)

Evaluate our operational costs going forward, due to increased safety measures and social distancing guidelines.

Evaluate how much physical (snail) mail we get on a daily basis and develop a plan to address it under similar disruption circumstances

Other (please specify)

Market Impact and Lessons Learned from the Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19)

The following questions and should take about 20 minutes to complete

Question Title

* 1. Kindly indicate the type of organization you work for (check one):

Question Title

* 2. Does your firm’s business continuity plan (BCP) have a pandemic preparedness and response plan component?

Question Title

* 3. Approximately when did your firm invoke or enact it’s pandemic BCP:

Question Title

* 4. When did your firm begin to communicate with its staff about a response plan?

Question Title

* 5. When did your firm begin to socially distance the staff, either by splitting critical functions across offices/geographic sites and/or working from home/remote telecommuting?

Question Title

* 6. Which of the following preparedness and response actions did your firm employ? (check all that apply)

Question Title

* 7. Does your firm have an alternate office location(s) to distance the staff and continue to conduct business

Question Title

* 8. How did your firm reach out to clients? (check all that apply)

Question Title

* 9. How did your firm reach out to the staff? (check all that apply)

Question Title

* 10. Did your staff have problems with teleconferencing and collaboration tools (e.g., GoToMeeting, Hangouts, Skype, Slack, Teams, WebEx, Zoom) or remote connectivity via VPN, terminal servers, Cisco or Citrix remote access servers?

Question Title

* 11. How would you rank your firm’s overall state of preparedness to respond to the disruption (Rank from 1-5 where 1= Not Well Prepared and 5=Very Prepared)?

Question Title

* 12. How would you grade the overall preparation and support from your key service providers? (rank from 1-5 where 1= Not Well Prepared and 5= Very Prepared)

Question Title

* 13. After enacting the BCP and distancing the staff, did your firm conduct business without disruption?

Question Title

* 14. Did you have staff that were directly or indirectly infected with COVID-19 (family members or significant others) that took them offline so they could not temporarily perform their work function?

Question Title

* 15. If your firm has multiple domestic or international office locations, how did you manage the rolling rate of infections/emergency orders/business closures across these cities/countries?

Question Title

* 16. What types of disruptions did your firm encounter (check all that are applicable)?

Question Title

* 17. Does your firm have an emergency notification system (ENS) or call tree system?

Question Title

* 18. How did your key managers (e.g., the incident managers) respond to the emergency? Please specify:

Question Title

* 19. Did your firm coordinate its response with state or local health agencies, regulators and the building management company etc.?

Question Title

* 20. Does your firm have designated emergency response teams?

Question Title

* 21. How much did your firm leverage staff/services from outside the U.S. or in other U.S. cities during the disruption?

Question Title

* 22. How often does your firm conduct BC/DR testing (Please check one)?

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* 23. Has your firm conducted staff BC/DR training drills for all locations?

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* 24. Has your firm previously conducted remote workforce connectivity, access and telecommuting for all locations?

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* 25. If yes to #24, how frequently have drills been conducted:

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* 27. Did your firm make any adjustments to its BCP preparedness and responses between the time that the WHO declared it a global emergency (Jan 30) and the time your plan was invoked and staff mobilized?

Question Title

* 28. In retrospect, what worked well for your firm (check all that apply):

Question Title

* 29. What did not work well (check all that apply):

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* 30. What part of the disruption was least expected/planned for (i.e., what was the biggest, most unpleasant surprise):

Question Title

* 31. What was the biggest misstep made in planning and preparing for this disruption:

Question Title

* 32. What was the biggest misstep made in responding to this disruption?

Question Title

* 33. What areas does your firm plan to make changes to going forward (check all applicable)?

The following questions and should take about 20 minutes
to complete

* 15. If your firm has multiple domestic or international office
locations, how did you manage the rolling rate of
infections/emergency orders/business closures across
these cities/countries?

* 18. How did your key managers (e.g., the incident managers)
respond to the emergency? Please specify:

* 23. Has your firm conducted staff BC/DR training drills for all
locations?

* 24. Has your firm previously conducted remote workforce
connectivity, access and telecommuting for all locations?

* 33. What areas does your firm plan to make changes to going
forward (check all applicable)?