[OR] [MLRe] [E2] [C9] Identifying Critical Business Services of OR Implement Phase for Malaysian Life Reinsurance Group Berhad

Identifying Critical Business Services

The Plan phase sets direction and governance. The Implement phase builds the core operational resilience capability. This chapter covers Stage 1 of the Implement phase: Identify Critical Business Services for Malaysian Life Reinsurance Group Berhad (MLRe).

What is a Critical Business Service?

A critical business service is a service MLRe provides to an external party (a cedant, a regulator, a counterparty) whose disruption could cause intolerable harm to those parties, to MLRe's financial position or to the stability of the market. It is a service as seen from outside, not a department, a system or an internal process.

What is and is not a business service?

• A business service: "Process and pay claims recoveries to cedants." It has an external recipient and an outcome.
• Not a business service: "The claims department", "the treaty administration system" or "payroll". These are the people, technology and processes that support services.

The distinction matters because resilience is then measured on what reaches the cedant or regulator, however many teams and systems are involved.

How Does MLRe Identify Business Services?

Start from the value chain: risk assumption and underwriting, claims recovery and settlement, retrocession management, investment and asset-liability management, and financial and regulatory reporting. For each, ask "What does MLRe deliver, to whom, and what would they lose if it stopped?"

How to Identify Critical Business Services

1. Define scope and objectives

Confirm which parts of MLRe are in scope (normally the whole organisation) and what the output must achieve: a Board-approved inventory of critical services that drives the rest of the programme.

2. Conduct a business services impact analysis

For each candidate service, assess the effect of disruption on cedants and takaful operators, on policyholders indirectly, on MLRe's finances, on regulatory standing and on reputation. Capture inputs, processes, outputs, dependencies, and recovery time and recovery point objectives.

3. Engage stakeholders

Run workshops with Underwriting, Claims, Actuarial, Finance, Investments, IT, Risk and Compliance. They know what happens in practice, including peak periods such as treaty renewals and period-end reporting.

4. Prioritise services

Rank services with consistent criteria and agree the cut-off for "critical". A scoring approach with clear thresholds avoids debates based on seniority.

5. Document critical business services

Keep an inventory that states each service's description, owner, recipients, inputs and outputs, dependencies, recovery objectives and regulatory relevance.

6. Validate and review

Present to the OR Steering Committee, then to the Board for approval. Review at least annually and whenever the business changes.

Illustrative Critical Business Services for MLRe

This list is a starting hypothesis, drawn from MLRe's published business model. MLRe's own analysis may add, merge, or remove services.

Summary

A Board-approved list of critical business services focuses all later work. Chapter 10 maps what each service depends on.

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