- The coronavirus pandemic has become a kind of stress test for companies, thanks to which it was possible to identify who is technically ready for the challenges of today, and who is not. The traditional approach to work around the world has changed. How did DBK survive this transition process, since the Bank managed to update its IT infrastructure before the beginning of the pandemic? What opportunities does the Bank have now?
- If we talk about the process of switching to the remote work mode in case of quarantine announcement, the Bank's Management Board developed and approved the appropriate plan in advance. During three weeks of training, we instructed employees, evaluated available resources, and tested possible scenarios and techniques. Moreover, based on the business processes and legal requirements, the Bank's obligations, legal, financial and information security risks, we have already determined the divisions and the list of employees, as well as the forms of their work. All this made it possible to switch to remote operation in just one day, including addressing the public through the media, employees and our contractors. Thus, on March 15 of this year, on Sunday, immediately after the appeal of the President of Kazakhstan, K.Tokayev, the Chairman of the Management Board launched the plan within an hour.
But the main work on the modernization of the Bank’s infrastructure was completely completed in 2019 in accordance with the approved IT Infrastructure Development Program of DBK in order to ensure the security, continuous operation and fault tolerance of the IT system. It is important that this work should have been carried out with the ability to work in real time, with the preservation of productivity, with the ability to work on backup systems in case of emergencies. Parallel operation performed to increase productivity. Now it has grown 30 times.
Two years ago, the Bank moved to a new building, but the server rooms were moved only a year later. The beginning of this move was put by my predecessors, while I got into the hottest time for their implementation. I was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Management Board in April last year, at the same time work began on the migration of systems. The Department of Information Technology developed a step-by-step plan that provided for all options for the development of events and each of these options had its own scenario of action. Relocation of equipment was not supposed to interfere with the bank’s operations, so they actually moved in 3 days, from Friday night to Monday morning. First virtual, transferred the data on the backing store, and then physically transporting empty equipment. The responsibility is huge, since it was about the entire banking database. I could see the apprehension in the eyes of my colleagues, but fortunately, everything went well. Now I am proud to say that my colleagues from the Department of Information Technology have coped with this task admirably.
As for the coronavirus pandemic, it certainly made its own adjustments and posed new challenges to DBK. The issue of automation is important only in terms of ensuring conditions for the work of all employees during the quarantine period; now we have approved a temporary work procedure to exclude direct contact of customers with Bank employees. However, what our colleagues are doing is much more important for the country and the Bank. I cannot fail to note the level of involvement of all DBK employees, who have to solve the most difficult tasks in isolation. The ability to mobilize in the shortest possible time, adapt to new unusual conditions, unite in a common team, see new opportunities in a crisis - I think all this is the best proof of professionalism: to change in order to change the world around us.
- How is the remote work at the Bank going now? After all, the Bank was one of the first to decide to switch to this format of work.
- Bank employees connect to their workplaces using a VPN connection protected by a certificate stored on a personal token. For employees, nothing has changed in the course of work other than connecting to a VPN and a remote work connection. Meetings and working meetings are held in ZOOM, user applications are accepted in all available instant messengers and remotely processed. Only operations that are prohibited by law from being performed remotely are performed locally. Difficulties are encountered, but only in the Internet traffic in the places where employees live.
- Will there be a need for a new IT upgrade?
- IT strategy approved in 2017. The main task was to modernize the entire IT infrastructure, based on the capabilities that the Bank had and its capacity requirements. Of course, it is possible that in a few years there will be a need to expand capacity, because business demands are growing and information needs are changing. We are talking about creating databases, an initiative to develop CRM systems based on a personal account on the DBK website - everything for customers and contractors, including buying statistical data, obtaining information online, business intelligence based on data science.
I am glad that DBK is one of those organizations that updates its information capabilities and changes the thinking of its employees. It is not enough just to buy equipment, you still need to learn how to make the most of its capabilities, otherwise there is no point in buying new equipment if it is not properly used. It’s the same as buying a cool gadget or the latest smartphone, and using it as a calculator and communication tool. Therefore, the Bank conducted training of employees in parallel with the installation of new software. In addition, we are periodically checked by external experts on the level of IT maturity of the Bank and its staff.
I would like to note that the IT update has allowed us to accelerate our business processes related to making decisions on projects in practice. For example, earlier from the moment of receiving the results of a banking examination and further submitting the project for consideration by the authorized body and signing the protocols, it could take 1.5 months. Today, this is a one-day process, if everything is provided correctly and if all the technical issues are clearly worked out. Our experts, as before, do not spend a lot of working time on a desk-to-desk collection of signatures. We have experience of holding meetings of authorized bodies online when one of the Board members was located on another continent, others - in Boston, and the rest - in Nur-Sultan.
- DBK declares almost complete transition to electronic document management. What have you been able to achieve and what aspects of the company's operations will this affect?
- The transition to electronic document management based on the Paper Free principle began almost immediately after the inauguration of the new head of DBK Abay Sarkulov. I started my current duties shortly before, so solving digitalization problems for me, as the person in charge of this area in DBK, was one of the first professional challenges. The Department of Business Processes together with the Department of Information Technology developed a step-by-step action plan, which was also implemented by the Department of Human Resources Management and the Department of Legal Support. Within 4 business days, the entire Bank was mobilized, training colleagues to work on the new system using an electronic digital signature. Everything was complicated by the fact that the work fell at the beginning of May, when there were traditionally many public holidays, moreover, at that time the Department of Legal Support, in connection with the change of the first head of DBK, introduced changes to the organization’s documents of title. These changes required registration with state bodies, and in order to receive an electronic digital signature in PSCs, the signature of the head of the legitimate head of the Bank was required. But despite all the obstacles, we managed to complete the task and reached the goal: 226 employees of the Bank received the EDS within 4 business days and installed it on their work computers. Thus, today about 80% of the Bank's document flow has been converted to electronic format. We have made an exception only for those documents that need to be stored on paper, for example, title documents for property pledged to the Bank, agreements on opening a credit line, etc., as well as documents of our contractors that are still working on paper.
- Now DBK is working on the language of BPM?
- True, the introduction of BPM in the Bank allowed us to answer a number of questions, such as "what should I do if I need to quickly change the work of the entire organization?", "and if automation is also introduced at the same time?" For us, BPM is a methodology, a set of basic principles and approaches to building notations and organizing work using business processes. Each business process goes through a specific cycle from creation to implementation, with repeated interviews with business process owners, testing, and error correction. This cycle can be repeated an infinite number of times. Any business or organization is not a frozen monolith, but a developing organism in a constantly changing environment. When processes are standardized and digitized, they are understandable regardless of the country, that is, international unified rules ensure transparency of activities. In addition, digitalization and automation are best suited to eliminate any type of risk of corruption, since a computer is a machine that provides answers to questions either "yes" or "no", without the possibility of a subscript understanding of any norm of documents. However, where expert judgment is needed, i.e. the expertise itself, which requires reading the documents, contracts, terms, and obligations of the project itself, we maintain the practice of individual analysis of each project by an expert. At the same time, for each such analysis, an "electronic trace" is saved, so each document is signed by EDS personally by the employee. This increases the personal responsibility for the judgment of each of our experts, while at the same time giving them independence. In life, this is always the case – any freedom implies an obligation and responsibility.
- How does the Bank ensure cybersecurity?
- Issues of improving cybersecurity are directly under the responsibility of the Bank's Chairman of the Management Board. There is a special information security service that reports directly to the Chief Executive Officer. All proposed IT initiatives are always checked by the Information Security Service: a cross-test is conducted for vulnerability to external threats and implemented with the approval of this service. In addition, the Service has clearly developed action plans for several years and is actively working on them.
