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What the Swisscom outage taught about recovery plans
The Swisscom outage on May 3, 2022, was a reminder of our society’s profound reliance on digital connectivity. However, it was more than just a service disruption — it was a teachable moment for businesses and IT leaders about the importance of robust recovery plans, communication strategies, and operational resilience. The good news is such events are opportunities for digital readiness.
Building Better Disaster Recovery Plans (DRPs)
Disaster recovery plans are not just a checklist item for compliance but strategic imperative. The Swisscom event underscores a critical point: a DRP that isn’t rigorously tested is as good as non-existent. Beyond the obvious chaos, the Swisscom outage offers a blueprint — albeit an unintentional one — on how businesses can prepare for, and recover from, catastrophic failures. In practice, it involves more than a dusty binder labelled “Disaster Recovery Plan”.
The problem with most DRPs is that they look great on PowerPoint but crumble under real-world pressure. If such a plan is not built to avoid disasters in the first place, then it is obsolete.
1 – Simulate Scenarios Regularly
Routine testing of DRPs through simulations is key. These tests should mimic real-world scenarios, including the most disruptive failures, to expose vulnerabilities. For instance, Swisscom’s maintenance-induced failure suggests a lack of comprehensive stress testing during routine operations.
Indeed, there is no such thing as “routine” when you’re managing a national digital infrastructure. Every update, no matter how minor, should be treated like brain surgery. Test it. Stress-test it. Again. Then simulate what happens when it all goes sideways. Swisscom apparently skipped these steps, opting instead for the digital equivalent of “hold my beer”.
2 – Establish Clear Fallback Protocols
DRPs must include fallback mechanisms that can be activated within minutes, not hours. These mechanisms should prioritize restoring critical services first, such as emergency lines, which were also disrupted during the outage. Swisscom’s outage was self-inflicted, but the impact mirrored the chaos of a coordinated cyber assault. That is why recovery plans need to address every potential failure point, including the ones you accidentally trigger yourself.
3 – Ensure Cross-System Redundancy
Investing in redundancy—whether through alternative providers, backup servers, or cloud solutions—is costly but non-negotiable. In a digitally dependent economy, downtime costs far exceed these preventive investments.
Indeed, redundancy is not optional for such services. A single point of failure should keep every CTO awake at night. Swisscom clearly bet the farm on one system, and when it failed, the whole country paid the price. Redundancy — whether through parallel systems, multiple providers, or independent backup networks — is not just a nice-to-have.
Transparent Communication During Crises
The main aspect to keep in mind about a crisis is that silence is deafening. When Swisscom went dark, so did its communication channels. Hotline numbers were overwhelmed. Social media updates? Nonexistent. Customers were left guessing whether they’d lost Internet or entered the digital apocalypse.
Swisscom’s handling of customer communication during the outage left much to be desired. Silence breeds frustration and mistrust. That is why a robust communication strategy can mitigate reputational damage even during a crisis.
1 – Empower Customer Support Teams and Prepare for Worst-Case Scenarios
In practice, communication plans often assume partial outages — not total system failures. Swisscom’s experience should serve as a wake-up call: when everything goes dark, how do you reach customers ? In this case, the service supplier could have deployed SMS alerts, used old-school radio broadcasts, or partnered with news outlets to provide updates.Having offline contingency plans, like automated phone recordings or pre-written crisis statements is not only smart, but great brand survival tactics.
When hotline numbers are overwhelmed, alternate solutions such as chatbots, FAQs, or proactive updates on accessible platforms can ease customer anxiety.
3 – Own the Narrative
Transparency about the root cause, actions taken, and timelines for resolution is crucial. When disaster strikes, don’t wait for your customers to piece together the story. Control the message. People don’t expect perfection, but they demand honesty. Swisscom’s vague explanation — a “problem during maintenance” — didn’t cut it. Own mistakes, explain what happened, and outline how you’ll fix it. Silence breeds suspicion, and in the digital age, suspicion spreads faster than outages.
Lessons for Leadership: Turning Failures into Frameworks
Beyond technical fixes, the outage calls for a leadership mindset that views failures as opportunities for systemic improvement.
Building digital resilience isn’t the IT department’s job — it’s a boardroom priority. Why ? Because downtime costs more than money. It erodes trust, damages reputations, and exposes vulnerabilities that competitors — and especially customers — won’t forget so easy.
On a strategic level, adopt a continuous improvement culture. Indeed, every failure should feed back into refining processes, protocols, and recovery plans. Post-mortem reviews should not focus solely on what went wrong but on how to build resilience. Then, promote digital literacy among users. Encourage customers to prepare for digital outages by saving critical information offline. This minor adjustment can significantly reduce the impact of sudden disruptions.
On a tactical level, here are some steps to follow:
1 – Invest in Resilience Like It’s Revenue
Recovery plans are a cost centre. And resilience is an investment. The difference ? Resilience keeps you running. So stop treating redundancy and disaster planning as budget line items and start viewing them as competitive advantages.
2 – Build a Culture That Anticipates Failure
The most successful organizations embrace failure — not because they enjoy it, but because they expect it. Swisscom’s failure suggests a culture of complacency: routine updates weren’t stress-tested, and disaster recovery wasn’t designed for real-world chaos. That’s not bad luck; that’s quite a bad operational leadership.
3 – Turn Every Failure Into a Case Study
Swisscom’s outage should become required reading for every tech executive. The lesson ? Success is not about avoiding failure because that is not possible — it’s about how quickly and effectively you bounce back. If you’re not learning from your mistakes, you’re destined to repeat such errors. And in today’s digital economy, one mistake can cost a business everything.
Future-Proofing Digital Infrastructures
The Swisscom outage wasn’t just a failure in technology but a wake-up call for every organization managing critical digital infrastructure. In an era where digital dependence is only set to grow, resilience isn’t optional — it’s the price of admission. By integrating tested recovery plans, transparent communication strategies, and a forward-thinking leadership approach, businesses can transform setbacks into strategic advantages.
An Internet user joked that Swisscom should activate emergency sirens during major outages. It’s quite a ridiculous idea — and yet, it’s not. The concept speaks to a deeper need for proactive, audible crisis communication when digital channels fail.
The real takeaway from the Swisscom event ?
Outages happen — but how you prepare and respond defines your company’s value and keep its branding high.
FinTech Wealth Management expert with 30 years of successful track record, from Unicible/BCV to Odyssey and Temenos, plus hundreds of important banks across EMEA, APAC, and NAM.
► Background — from C-language code to C-suite in 30 years
• WealthSuite Triple’A Temenos TAP Plus expert
• crisis & change management
• complex multi-level project – program – portfolio management
• process architecture & governance, process optimization, BPO
• financial services software engineering FS FinTech
Career start as an innovative software engineer in startups â–ş to strategic advisory & turnaround for Tier1 & Tier2 Banks at senior C-level.
• T-shaped mastery of the latest key technologies, business, and operational practices in retail banking, asset management, core banking, PMS.
• Keen focus on improving productivity, client retention, and revenues through expertise in Program Management, Process Governance, and Optimized Delivery, augmented by know-how in complex issue resolution and value-driven E2E end-to-end implementations.
Temenos Practitioner accredited across WealthSuite and FrontOffice domains (FO, PM, TTI). Certified modules include Scripts & Formats, Implementation Methodology (T3TIM), Channels PM, APA Attribution, Constraint Management, Order Management, Data Security, WealthSuite Portfolio Management, and T24 Triple’A Interface. The Practitioner status anchors Didier’s capacity to operate as a Transformation Director, bridging certified product mastery with execution governance and program recovery.
Disclaimer —
The views and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author, Didier Debbaut, and do not represent the views, positions, or policies of Temenos AG, its affiliates, clients, or partners. All information is shared in good faith and in the spirit of professional exchange, as part of an open, constructive contribution to the FinTech and WealthTech community.
Any technical references, opinions, or analyses are based solely on publicly available information and the author’s independent field expertise. They are offered for general informational and educational purposes only.
No confidential, proprietary, or non-public information related to Temenos products, clients, or business operations is disclosed or implied.
© Didier Debbaut — All rights reserved.
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