Architecting the Workplace Revolution

Babita BP finds that networks and end points sometimes get overloaded while running tools and applications

Ratan Kumar observes that during the lockdown, the branches were working with 50% capacity, but the backend was fully equipped to work from home

Banking Frontiers organized a panel discussion of technology and cyber security experts to discuss how the cyber workplace is evolving and how to make it more secure. Participants were Deepak Sarda, GM-IT at Indian Bank, Ratan Kumar, GM at Central Bank of India, KM Reddy, CISO at Union Bank of India, Babitha BP, CISO at CSB Bank and Prajit Nair, Director Sales - End User Computing at VMware. Manoj Agrawal, Group Editor at Banking Frontiers, moderated the discussion.

Manoj: What major issues faced by the employees have been eliminated or automated?

Babitha: Due to the pandemic, the focus shifted to automation of the processes. Initially only few tech savvy employees worked from home. After one year, more employees have been upskilled.

Ratan Kumar: The branches were working with 50% capacity. But the backend was fully equipped to work from home. Employees faced many glitches and disruptions initially. We are in the process of redesigning our websites, call center workings and digital products.

Deepak: The biggest change was the use of technology for major decision making. We have ramped up our IT support. Some applications which were allowed only to be used on intranet are allowed on home PCs now. It is difficult to replicate the physical branch banking for public sector banks.

Manoj: What kind of support did you take from outside service providers to mitigate the issues?

Reddy: During the first lockdown the challenges ranged from scarcity of hardware to disruption in business continuity to security of the devices. This time the challenge is coming from employees getting infected and managing to keep the business running. To handle the unpredictable situations, we are collaborating with vendors to provide IT solutions. With only 15% physical presence, we are able to manage 100% business.

Manoj: What kind of requests and queries have you been receiving from BFSI companies?

Prajit: Each bank has its own demand. But access management is common to all. Banks would like to have visibility of their end points. With hardware now not restricting to premises this is the biggest challenge. Many banks have solved this using the VDI solutions. Now they have increased the security layer by introducing facial recognition for user. This allows the firms to measure employee productivity also. To get new devices connected to the bank applications, without having to call the IT department is also being requested. All the companies have been going through various phases:

React: What do we do? As the lockdown

was announced everyone was scared.

Respond: Each firm started building tools to make work from home easy.

Rethink: Now the firms have started thinking about bigger picture. No more point solutions are working. To find balance between security and ease of working for the employee has become the priority for the firms.

Manoj: Do you see the business enabler tools also increasing at the same pace as business applications?

Deepak: RBIs regulation requires to i nstal l t ools as par t of c y ber regulations. Along with that some tools are implemented by banks themselves. The general idea is to have maximum security on the end user site. Each bank’s requirements are different hence the applications will vary.

Babitha: Implementation and management of various tools in the right way needs resources. Sometimes due to network issues the applications are underutilized. Integration of these tools with SOC for alerts is another operational challenge being faced. Moving from older tools to the new ones takes time. Threats have increased and multilevel security is needed. The networks and the end points are sometimes getting overloaded while running these applications.

Manoj: What is being done to make the adoption and usage of technology easy?

Prajit: A lot of work has been happening at the data center level. Client-side consolidation has started to happen. To bring all the different types of devices and networks under one roof is a challenge. Sometimes the devices are also connected through VPN. This increases the vulnerability of the data center. VMware has brought unified end-point management, ‘VMware workspace 1’, which unifies multiple tools. It increases the visibility of the devices. We have also integrated next generation anti-virus solutions with it. With our latest solutions the devices can be patched automatically. If the user or device is not registered it will not be allowed to connect to the bank’s network.

We are helping the organizations to consolidate the tools, reduce them, bring in more automation, reduce cost and bring in more efficiency.

Manoj: Which will be the bigger challenge: What to do or how to do?

Reddy: With integrated technology both these questions can be answered together. This is the era of hyper automation.

Ratan Kumar: There are lot of vendors giving lot of solutions. This takes care of the how to do part. What to do will depend on each organization’s needs.

Deepak: The reach of technology has allowed us to implement many services. But in rural area where people are not technology savvy, it is challenge.

Babitha: How is not a challenge any more. The question remains – how are we going to deliver the payment gateway to customers in a secured way. Banks cannot pass on the bug in case of issues. That will have to kept in mind before accepting any proposal.

KM Reddy has identified a shift in problem from first phase (scarcity of hardware) to second phase (employees getting infected)

Deepak Sarda points out that technology has reached all over, but the challenge is that in rural areas people are not tech savvy

Prajit Nair describes 3 phases in response to the lockdown: 1. React - figuring out what to do 2. Responding - building tools that enable WFH 3. Rethink - think about the big picture