Stater provides all services involved in the mortgage process – from setting up an overflow facility for mid-office activities to handling the entire mid-office and back-office operations. In addition, Stater provides a range of supplementary services, including management information, risk models for fraud prevention and portfolio insight by performing portfolio analyses and benchmarks. Its aim is to be a complete business partner.
Michel Hulsbergen, Purchasing & Facility Management Manager at Stater, tells about the partnership with COIN.
What is the reason for Stater setting up Business Continuity Management?
We’ve done that for our clients. The SLAs for our client services imply that Business Continuity has to be properly organised. In 2008 we relocated to our current premises in Amersfoort. Previously, we had recovery arrangements with our sister organisation. That organisation was sold and shortly after the move we encountered a disaster. This made us even more aware of the importance of Business Continuity and a budget was released to contract recovery facilities from a professional party. The office-, desktop- and telephone recovery services contract was awarded to COIN at that time.
What does Stater see as trends in the area of Business Continuity Management (BCM)?
Unlike banks for example, Stater is not legally bound to put in place BCM. Nevertheless, Stater has been leading the way for many years now with regard to BCM. We are also ISO-certified for Business Continuity Management and we are audited annually by Fitch. BCM-awareness of our clients is also increasing, that’s very clear. BCM is no longer a topic exclusively on the agenda of the Top 100 companies; more and more companies are realising the importance of the continuity of their business.
What are the most important reasons for choosing COIN?
Following a tender, COIN scored best with regard to price/quality for office recovery facilities. COIN’s offer was excellent and their approach on how BCM should be implemented was solid. COIN’s underlying vision appealed to us the most; an organisation focusing on office recovery locations should have flat, powerful and scalable structure. That’s the advantage of COIN over its larger competitors, which are less flexible. Another reason is that COIN has several recovery locations at its disposal.
How is Stater’s experience so far of its partnership with COIN?
It’s been a very good working relationship so far. COIN is truly a partner that is reliable and customer focussed. During the annual recovery exercises COIN has demonstrated its flexibility and ability to provide input. There’s also flexibility in the contract with regard to increasing and decreasing the number of workstations. COIN has shown that it can work with us to help find the solutions that are required. For example, when our telephone recovery system needed attention COIN came up, proactively, with an appropriate solution we are using today. The long-term partnership has resulted in a relationship that just keeps getting better, though of course we still have to keep each other on our toes.
What does Stater expect from a partner such as COIN in the event of a disaster?
That what is agreed in the contract, and more, actually happens! That COIN puts in the effort to make sure everything runs as smooth as possible for all parties, which is what you would expect from a partner like COIN with its expertise and experience.
Does Stater have improvement suggestions for COIN?
As soon as there are developments in COIN services or as soon as there are new trends in Business Continuity Management, COIN should share and discuss them with its clients. Be as proactive as possible and keep feeding us information!
Stater has contracted COIN for the following services:
- Dedicated and shared office recovery workstations
- Telephone accessibility for both the Contact Centre and the office environment
- A Group Information System to inform groups of people via text- and voice messages
- Technical Test, Business Test and Telephony Test
- Data connection between the COIN recovery locations and the Stater Data Centre
- Technical Handbook
- Storage of essential property at the recovery locations
- Desktop Image Management, so that in the event of a disaster the most up-to-date image is available on all workstations
For more information about Stater, please visit: www.stater.nl