Toimiva talitluspidevuse plaani välja töötamine ettevõtte APL Agencies Estonia OÜ näitel

Abstract

Käesoleva lõputöö eesmärgiks oli koostada toimiv talitluspidevuse plaan. Projekti teostamiseks oli loodud projekti meeskond kolmest inimesest: diplomitöö autor, koolituste ja protsesside parendamise juht ja operatsioonide meeskonna juht. Antud töö raames töötati välja konkreetne tegevuskava operatsioonimeeskonna jaoks. Käsitleti ainult personaliga seotud riske. Otsustati, et kriisiolukorras antakse talitluspidevuse plaani järgi üle ainult keskmise ja kõrge prioriteediga ülesanded. Madala prioriteediga ülesanded saavad oodata, kuni normaalne olukord taastub. Talitluspidevuse plaani koostamise esimeses etapis sai analüüsi käigus valitud kaks globaalset jagatud teeninduskeskust ja üks UK äriüksus, kes hakkavad Eesti äriüksuse jaoks esindama tagavarakontori rolle. Need keskused on: Malaisia ja Hiina äriüksused. Tagavarakontori valikukriteeriumiteks olid ajavahe, oskuste ja teadmiste tase, äriüksuse tegevusvaldkond ning inimressursi suurus. Projekti teises etapis jagati kõik ülesanded nende kolme äriüksuse vahel. UK äriüksus sai endale kõige kriitilisemad ülesanded, kokku seitse ülesannet. Hiina äriüksus sai endale neli ülesannet keskmise prioriteediga. Malaisia sai endale kokku 19 ülesannet: 11 kõrge ja kaheksa keskmise prioriteediga. Seejärel saadeti tagavarakontoritele ülesannete manuaalid ning organiseeriti ülesannete demod. Koostöös teiste äriüksustega ilmnesid ka mõned takistused: terminoloogia, lähenemise ja keelte erinevused. Heas koostöös said protsessi jooksul kõik ebakõlad selgeks räägitud ja lahendused tõstatunud probleemidele leitud. Tegevusplaani kontrollimiseks organiseeriti projekti kolmandas etapis koos Malaisia äriüksusega katsed kahe ülesande näitel. Sama oli plaanis korraldada koos Hiina äriüksusega, kuid nemad teavitasid, et antud hetkel ei saa nad ressursi puuduse tõttu Eesti üksust toetada tagavarakontorina. Eesti äriüksuse direktor otsustas, et Hiinaga võetakse uuesti ühendust 2017 aasta suvel. Projekti raames lepiti kokku kõikide kriisiolukorras tagavarakontoritele delegeeritavate ülesannete jaoks katsete kava koostamine kuni 2017 aasta mai lõpuni ja seejärel on plaanis korraldada samasuguseid katseid koos Malaisia äriüksusega vähemalt iga poole aasta tagant. Kokku on talitluspidevusplaani koostamine võtnud aega natuke rohkem kui kuus kuud. Kuid reaalselt võiks seda aega oluliselt vähendada. Peamiseks põhjuseks protsessi pikas kulus oli see, et projektiga tegelevate inimeste jaoks pole talitluspidevuse plaani koostamine nende põhiline tööülesanne ja selle tõttu oli käsitletud protsessi toimumisaeg pikem. Ajavahe ja teiste tööülesannetega koormatuse tõttu oli raske leida kõikidele kaasatud isikutele sobivat aega kas kõne tegemiseks või demoks. Teise aspektina mängis rolli ka see, plaani koostamisega tegelesid inimesed, kellel on vähe kogemusi ja seega võtsid kõik arutlused ja toimingud rohkem aega. Sellest tuleneb ka autori järeldus, et ettevõtte kõrgem juhtkond võiks mõelda selle peale, et luua siiski eraldi meeskond, kes saaks tegeleda talitluspidevusplaani arendamisega edasi ning täiendavalt osta samas ka talitluspidevuse ISO standard, mille õige jälgimine aitab tagada plaani ajakohase kvaliteedi. Talitluspidevuse plaani koostamine on suur, aeganõudev ning finantsiliselt raske toiming. Sealjuures tõestus selle vaieldamatu olulisus. Selline suur jagatud teeninduskeskus nagu Eesti äriüksus peab kindlasti ette planeerima oma tegevusi erinevate kriisiolukordade puhuks, kuna tema teenindussfääri kuulub kogu Euroopa regioon. Suur osa Eesti üksuse poolt pakutavatest teenustest on kriitilise tähtsusega, mille katkemine tooks kaasa suured finantsilised kahjud.

In 2016, June one of the leading shipping companies American President Lines (APL) became a part of the CMA CGM Group. CMA CGM S.A. is French container transportation and shipping company founded in Marseille in 1978 and headed by Jacques Saadé at present time. It is the third largest container company in the world, using 170 shipping routes between 400 ports and terminals in 150 countries. Its headquarters are located in Marseille, and its North American headquarters are situated in Norfolk, Virginia, USA. Here is located Estonian business unit with Global Shared Service Center Estonia (GSSC Estonia) in Tallinn. Estonian business unit currently provides wide range of services such as customer service, sales support and liner operations’ support for 24 European and Middle East countries. When the author joined the company 5 years ago it was around a hundred employees in Estonian office. For last 5 years it have been growing up to 234 employees and it continues expanding and developing its knowledge and skills, as well as keeps on searching for new, better solutions in order to raise its productivity, accuracy and gain more benefits. It is a fact that the greater role of global shared service center in the company, the more serious consequences and impact to the business may happen in case of breaks in working process or Force Majeure situations, which may stop working of this center. Any work stoppage or delay may lead to financial losses and that is why it is so important to develope business continuity plan, which can be applied in time of crisis or any obstructing situation. The problem of current thesis is in the situation where Estonian business unit has active business continuity plan, which partly is not feasible and requires reviewing and alteration. The objective of the thesis is to create an effective business continuity plan. In the theoretical part the author described the global shared service centre and provided an overview of its benefits and risks. Besides made a research of the business continuity plan and tried to find a solution in order to solve existing problems. In order to achieve the goal of the thesis the author of diploma - team leader for BLX&Mediterrian & Special cargo bookings coordinated with Training and Process Improvement specialist and Marine Operations’ team manager. Within the framework of current project a specific action plan created for operations’ team. It was considered only personnel related risks. We have also made a decision to transfer medium and higher urgency tasks to back-up office in case of crisis situation. The low-priority tasks can wait until the situation returns back to normal. On the first stage of the business continuity plan development two other Malaysian and China global shared service centers and UK branch office have been chosen to be back up offices for Estonian one. There a considerable amount of criteria to consider when selecting a back-up office such as time difference, skills and knowledge level, specialization and human resource but then it is an important undertaking that makes a considerable impact on the success of business unit. During second phase of the project all tasks were divided between those three business units. UK office got most critical tasks, 7 tasks in total. China office received four tasks with medium priority and Malaysian got 19 tasks in total: 11 with high and 8 with medium priority. On the next stage back up offices received manuals for all the tasks and were familiarized with demo presentations. Some obstacles were faced working with other offices such as terminology, business approach and language barriers like lost in translation. Thanks to the good cooperation we have managed to cope with all the difficulties. The third phase of the project was to control the action plan together with Malaysian office where we arranged tests for 2 specific tasks. Same should have been done with Chinese office, but unfortunately colleagues from that office were unable to do it due to lack of recourse and they could not support us as a back-up office. Estonian office director made a decision to contact Chinese office again later on summer time. During the project it was agreed to assemble full testing schedule for all the tasks by the end of May 2017 and to arrange memory refreshing tests with Malaysian office at least twice a year. The research and development of the plan took slightly more than half a year. I believe in real situation this time could be significantly reduced. Main reason for delay was lack of time of both sides Estonian and Malaysian GSSC for arranging conference calls or demo presentations for people engaged into this project as it was not their basic task. The plan was also made by people with very limited experience in this area. Consequently the company's management is about to make a separate team which would deal with this matter further and to purchase and adopt business continuity ISO standards. Business continuity plan is important, but time-consuming and financially heavy affair. Such global shared service center as Estonian business unit should plan all its activities in advance in order to avoid any crisis. Author reminds that the Estonian business serves the entire European region and offers wide range of different services. Most of all these services are being have critical value which leads to large financial losses.