MGT603: Operational Cyber Risk Analysis and System Thinking Approach

This report examines the operational issue of cyber risk within the Westpac Banking Group, an Australian financial institution. The analysis identifies cyber threats as a significant concern, potentially leading to data breaches and loss of customer trust. Employing a system thinking approach, the report utilizes the CATWOE tool to analyze the problem, considering customers, actors, transformation processes, world view, owners, and environmental constraints. The recommendations focus on mitigating cyber risks to protect customer information and maintain business performance. The report concludes that cyber risk is a critical operational issue, with customers as the primary stakeholders affected, and highlights the CATWOE tool's effectiveness in addressing the issue.

Running head: OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
MGT603: System Thinking
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Description of organization........................................................................................................2
Operational issue........................................................................................................................2
Reflection of stakeholders..........................................................................................................3
Recommendations......................................................................................................................3
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................4
References..................................................................................................................................5

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Introduction
In the modern world, the technology brings a huge revolution in various industries.
Due to technological growth, it supports the productivity increment within various businesses
(Biener, Eling & Wirfs, 2015). Instead of this, most of the businesses face a lot of operational
issues like managing overheads as well as monitoring performances, cyber risks and also
other risks. In this report, it follows the analysis of operational issues of an organization and
also recommendations by applying the system thinking approach and related tools.
Description of organization
According to this context, here the selective organization is Westpac Banking group
which is mainly an Australian second largest banking sector. This organization offers a
variety of banking services to the individuals, institutions as well as businesses etc. As per the
organization analysis, the number of customers are almost 14 million and the number of
employees exist approximately 40,000 people (Lukonga, 2018). In the year of 2002, Westpac
organization released a social related impact involving banking plan to meet the international
standards in the field of corporate social responsibility. This organization delivers the
products related with the finance, insurance, investment banking as well as mortgages and
also credit cards.
Operational issue
Based on the analysis of the performance of this banking sectors, it has been noted
that this sector faces lots of issues regarding cyber risks. If the cyber risks are properly not
managed therefore it may increase the number of threats which lead to happen data theft as
well as hacks and also other attacks.

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As because the organization is related with banking sector, therefore the cyber risk
may occur a significance impact on this sector (Bouveret, 2018). This cyber risks may occur
the data theft which leads to the exposure of the customers information and this may result
the creation of distrust among the customer base.
Reflection of stakeholders
This cyber risk may damage the business performance. It can affect the base line of
the organization and loss the customers trust. According to this situation, the customers are
the effective stakeholders because within the databases of the banking sectors, there may
exist lots of customers’ related information and as a result, the cyber risks can help to expose
the customers’ information. Also, it can expose the employees’ information also. In that case,
the customers are considered as major affected stakeholder and employees are mentioned as
minor affected stakeholder.
Recommendations
According to system thinking approach, the CATWOE tool is utilized to solve this
operational issue of this organization (Zahoor, Ud-din & Sunami, 2016). The CATWOE
involves six elements like customers, actor, transformation process, world view, owners,
environmental constraints etc. The functional elements may operate to resolve this kind of
issue in this way:
 Based on the first step, it requires to identify the customers of the organization and
also their relation with this organization.
 The second step involves the actors or employees of this organization and in this step,
it can understand the performance of the employees in this organization and obtain a
clear picture of the processing system of organization.

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 The third phase, it requires to consider carefully the input steps and also output steps
of this organization to ensure the accuracy of performance.
 The fourth stage involves different stakeholders and also their performance in this
organization.
 The fifth step considers the owners or investors of organization.
 Sixth step includes the environmental elements which may influence this organization
and may restrict the systems of organization like ethical boundaries, financial
constraints as well as rules and regulations etc.
Conclusion
In this part, it may conclude that the cyber risk is considered as vital operational issue
in this organization. For that, the customers are major affected stakeholder due to this cyber
risk of this organization. The cyber risk may loss the important information of customers
which leads the damage of the organization. In that case, the CATWOE is considered as
major tool which helps to recover this risk and this tool is applicable based on the system
thinking approach.

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References
Biener, C., Eling, M., & Wirfs, J. H. (2015). Insurability of cyber risk: An empirical
analysis. The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance-Issues and Practice, 40(1), 131-
158.
Bouveret, A. (2018). Cyber risk for the financial sector: a framework for quantitative
assessment. International Monetary Fund.
Lukonga, M. I. (2018). Fintech, inclusive growth and cyber risks: focus on the MENAP and
CCA regions. International Monetary Fund.
Zahoor, Z., Ud-din, M., & Sunami, K. (2016). Challenges in privacy and security in banking
sector and related countermeasures. International Journal of Computer
Applications, 144(3), 24-35.