Requirement · Australia · CPS 230 technology support
CPS 230 spans operational risk, critical operations and service providers. The technology supporting that work may sit across several teams and systems.
Understand where each solution area can help, then examine how the work connects in your organisation.
Key takeaway
You'll know which solution areas support each part of CPS 230, how the standard's terms line up with the ones suppliers use, and what to ask of your current systems before deciding what to change.
CPS 230 brings together three connected areas of work. An APRA-regulated entity must manage its operational risks, maintain its critical operations within tolerance levels through severe disruptions, and manage the risks that come with using service providers. Different governance, risk and compliance (GRC) systems may support each area. The organisation remains responsible for the decisions, the controls and the outcomes.
CPS 230 also places ultimate accountability for oversight with the board, so the records and reports these systems hold have to stand up at that level.
Risks, controls and action
The organisation maintains its risk profile, its controls, its monitoring and its remediation. Risk systems can connect assessments, indicators, testing results, incidents, near misses and actions, so owners see changes and outstanding weaknesses. CPS 230 asks for near misses to be captured and escalated alongside actual incidents, not only after something goes wrong.
Dependencies, plans and tests
The organisation identifies its critical operations, sets tolerance levels for disruption, maintains plans and tests them against severe but plausible scenarios. Continuity systems can hold operation and dependency records, plans, exercises, findings and follow-up actions. Under CPS 230 the board approves the business continuity plan and the tolerance levels, and reviews the results of testing.
Arrangements and oversight
The organisation identifies its material service providers, maintains a register and monitors the risks and performance attached to each arrangement. Third-party risk management (TPRM) systems can link providers and arrangements to the operations they support, along with assessments, owners, monitoring and changes. Under CPS 230 the board approves the service provider management policy and reviews risk and performance reporting on material providers.
Incident, internal control and audit systems may also hold relevant information. The detailed decisions inside each solution area belong in focused guides. This page looks at how information from one function reaches the others.
Suppliers rarely demonstrate in the standard's vocabulary. Knowing which of their terms sits closest to which of yours makes a demonstration easier to follow, and makes it clearer when a product covers something narrower than the requirement.
A material provider's risk assessment can inform the assumptions inside a continuity plan. The result of a continuity exercise can reveal a weakness in that provider's recovery capability, and should inform both the provider assessment and the operational risk assessment. Information needs to reach the responsible teams and lead to decisions, changes and follow-up.
Can your systems connect the provider, the operation, the assessment, the exercise finding and the action?
How does each affected team learn that something has changed, and how soon?
Can you see afterwards what was decided, by whom, and whether the follow-up was completed?
Manual records may need more dependable triggers and tracking. A partial system may need another module or product. Separate systems may need better information exchange. An integrated platform may need better use of what it already has. The five starting points below the page help you identify the technology question to take forward, whichever of these describes you.
How to Evaluate TPRM Software Demos: What to Ask and Watch goes deeper on testing a provider-risk product once you know what to ask.
Planning reference: This guidance is for assessing technology support. Which requirements apply, and how they are met, will depend on your organisation's own circumstances.
Spreadsheets, documents and email support much of the work, and the team is still learning what technology could contribute. Bring together the relevant functions and the technology team. Explore which capabilities could support risk management, provider oversight and continuity, then consider the benefits, the adoption effort and the justification.
Use Centvra's reading guides to understand the available solution areas. Explore Centvra's Solution Guides.
Priority requirements are clear enough to investigate suppliers. Research across broad GRC platforms and specialist products takes effort, especially when the same capability is described differently. Begin with the supported solution area you need, such as operational risk, third-party risk management or business continuity management, and include the information it must exchange with other functions.
Use Centvra to clarify your needs and identify suitable suppliers, then focus your effort on evaluating fit. Find Suitable Suppliers.
Existing software supports some CPS 230 activities, while important functions remain manual or weakly supported. Assess the actual gaps and ask the current provider what its available modules and configuration can deliver. Examine workflow depth and evidence, not only whether a feature name appears in a product description.
Document the uncovered requirements and explore another solution if the current provider cannot supply the needed coverage. Where a new product is needed, find suitable suppliers with Centvra.
Operational risk, third-party risk and continuity each have tools, but information exchange is limited or manual. A provider risk change may not reach the continuity plan. A failed recovery exercise may not reach the provider or operational risk assessment. Check which records and findings can move between systems and whether they prompt the responsible teams to review and act.
Ask current providers and your technology team to show the available integration, shared identifiers, review triggers and action tracking. Record what remains manual.
A connected platform creates the opportunity for shared oversight. Check whether it is actually used to monitor material service arrangements and to report in a way that reflects each service's nature and usage. CPS 230 calls for regular assessment of performance against agreed service levels, the effectiveness of controls over provider risk, and both parties' compliance with the agreement. It also makes the board the recipient of risk and performance reporting on material service providers, so the reporting has to stand up at that level.
Review whether those measures and the supporting evidence are current, linked to the relevant risks and operations, and brought together in reports that senior management and the board can act on. Ask the software provider what existing capabilities or configuration could close the gaps.
Fit-based software matching
Tell us what the software must support, how your teams work and which delivery constraints matter. Centvra uses those inputs to build a focused supplier shortlist.
Your operating brief
Fit-based shortlist
Potentially, but assess whether they can keep pace with changes, reporting deadlines and evidence needs. CPS 230 requires appropriate and effective information systems to monitor operational risk, compile and analyse the data, and support reporting to the board and senior management. It does not prescribe a dedicated GRC platform.
A spreadsheet can hold a register. Maintaining it does not by itself ensure that an incident, a near miss, a provider change or an exercise finding prompts timely reassessment across affected functions. Check whether your approach reliably triggers reviews, alerts responsible owners, tracks deadlines and preserves the history of decisions and completed actions. If this depends on individuals remembering to send emails or reconcile files, missed updates and stale information become a concern. The standard also sets time-bound notifications to APRA, measured in hours and days, which leaves little room for reconstructing events after the fact.
Software can support these activities through configured workflows, alerts, linked records and audit trails. Its effectiveness still depends on timely data, suitable configuration and people acting on the information.
Start with the depth of capability you need in operational risk, business continuity and third-party risk management. An integrated platform may make shared records and reporting easier, while specialist systems may offer greater depth in particular functions. Examine what your existing systems already do, which information must move between them and the effort needed to configure or connect them.
Ask for a demonstration of the relevant work and its cross-function follow-up. A shared platform does not guarantee that the functions are using one another's information, and connected specialist systems still need clear ownership of records and changes.
First, learn how each solution supports its core function. Ask software suppliers to show how users conduct risk assessments, manage service provider reviews, or maintain and test business continuity plans, depending on the solution being evaluated.
As the evaluation progresses, ask how information moves between functions and prompts follow-up. Operational and provider risk assessments should inform relevant continuity plans. Exercise findings should also feed back into risk assessments. If an exercise shows that an operation could not be restored inside the tolerance level set for it, can the system link the finding to the affected operation, risk and provider where relevant, notify responsible teams, and track reassessment and corrective actions?
Check the vocabulary as you go. Suppliers often describe this work in their own terms, and a demonstration of a recovery objective is not the same as evidence against a tolerance level. Establish which capabilities are standard, which require additional modules, configuration or integration, and which steps remain manual. For more detailed third-party risk evaluation guidance, read How to Evaluate TPRM Software Demos: What to Ask and Watch.
Centvra is an independent software matching platform focused on governance, risk and compliance (GRC). Its curated supplier dataset, guided questions and matching rules are built for evaluating GRC and related specialist software against your organisation's requirements.
Centvra can take much of the searching out of supplier research. Describe your needs and answer relevant follow-up questions to receive a focused shortlist with explanations of supplier fit. Your Supplier Evaluation Report, Demo Preparation Guide and Software Buying Journey Guide help you move into evaluation with clearer requirements and questions.
Centvra is free to use. Learn more about how Centvra works.