Design of an Integrated Operational Resilience Centre for Crisis Management in the Banking Sector

This thesis addresses a strategic priority for organizations: managing operational resilience and enabling rapid crisis response. Globalized supply chains, wider service coverage and increasing complexity have created highly iterdependent ecosystems. In this context what becomes essential for both growth and survival is active involvement within the ecosystem. Operational resilience has become a critical capability that needs continuous knowledge of resources and services and the ability to respond to or anticipate disruptions. The challenge is acute in financial services, where digitalization has generated new vulnerabilities. Cyberattacks and infrastructure failures can trigger cascading effects in the global financial ecosystem in just a few hours. To address these problems, the thesis introduces the concept of the Integrated Operational Resilience Center (IORC), which is a useful conceptual framework for rapid and informed interventions. The model is in line with the EU's Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), the first framework dedicated to digital resilience. DORA emphasizes oversight of critical ICT providers and promotes accountability, traceability and evidence-based governance. The IORC is designed as a multi-layered hub for governance, monitoring, decision-making and crisis communication. Inspired by NATO's Consultation, Command and Control (C3) taxonomy, it adopts a modular and interoperable architecture suitable for the banking sector. Its six levels touch on governance and orchestration, core services, communication, processes, roles and user-facing applications. The IORC leverages organizational and situational data to improve awareness, detect anomalies and guide crisis decisions, functioning effectively as a centralized control room. The key point of the thesis is the integration of artificial intelligence and digital twins. AI supports observability, predictive analysis and anomaly detection, while digital twins replicate infrastructure for impact assessment and stress testing. Together, they enable continuous validation and learning, transforming resilience into a dynamic capacity. This approach is illustrated through a prototype artificial intelligence-based monitoring application for managing supplier risks, capable of evaluating their financial reliability. The IORC also integrates regulatory requirements into transparent processes: dependency mapping improves risk control; simulations test scenarios; automated trace generation supports supervision; integrated communication guarantees secure reporting. Methodologically, the thesis combines normative analysis, architectural modeling, conceptual transfer to the NATO model and a practical demonstration. The IORC is not a rigid solution, but a flexible, modular and scalable reference architecture. This thesis work therefore argues that a structured approach to resilience, based on governance, integration and innovation, can serve as a strategic asset. The IORC offers institutions a model to strengthen stability, accelerate recovery and improve decision-making. Resilience is reformulated as a tangible and measurable resource, supported throughout the financial ecosystem. This work represents a first contribution, laying the foundations for further research within financial institutions.