THE VALUE OF DORA READINESS
DORA consolidates ICT risk management, incident reporting, digital operational resilience testing and third-party risk into one Regulation with direct effect across the EU. Competent authorities and the ESAs supervise against it, and critical ICT third-party providers can be designated for direct oversight.
For firms in scope and for the ICT providers they rely on, a credible DORA position is now a condition of continued market access, not an aspiration.
Establish an ICT risk management framework that the management body understands, approves, reviews and can defend to a competent authority.
Move from paper controls to tested resilience, with threat-led penetration testing where required and remediation that closes what the tests find.
Maintain a register of information on ICT third-party service providers, with contracts, criticality assessments and exit strategies that stand up to review.
HOW WE WORK
DORA is not a document exercise. Supervisors will look at whether ICT risk decisions are made, incidents are classified and reported correctly, resilience is tested against real threats and third-party dependencies are actually understood. We work with the people accountable for each of those to make the position defensible.
OUR APPROACH
Hael provides the specialist capacity, structure and judgement needed to move DORA from a legal reading to an operating position. We work across the management body, risk, ICT, security, procurement and legal, while ensuring accountability remains with the firm.
We confirm whether you are a financial entity, an ICT third-party service provider or both, identify which requirements apply and assess what is already in place.
You receive a written scope, gap assessment and implementation plan, with named responsibilities and decisions escalated to the management body.
We build the ICT risk management framework, incident classification and reporting process, resilience testing programme, and third-party risk framework including the register of information.
The work is designed around your operating model and existing control environment rather than a generic template.
We help teams operate the framework, exercise incident reporting against the ESA templates, run threat-led penetration testing where required and rehearse supervisory engagement.
Findings are remediated and evidenced before the position is put in front of a competent authority.
ASSURANCE AND SUPERVISION
DORA is enforced by competent authorities and the European Supervisory Authorities. Critical ICT third-party service providers may be designated for direct oversight by a Lead Overseer.
Hael prepares your framework, evidence and people for that supervision. We do not represent you before a competent authority. Our role is to ensure that the position you present is coherent, evidenced and consistent with the Regulation and the relevant regulatory technical standards.
Where issues are identified in a review or a test, we support root-cause analysis, remediation planning and re-testing so that the framework is measurably stronger the next time it is examined.
PLANNING YOUR PROGRAMME
The route to readiness depends on whether you are a financial entity, an ICT third-party service provider or a critical one, on the maturity of your existing operational-resilience arrangements and on your contractual estate.
We establish those facts before committing to a plan. You receive a defined scope, workstreams, responsibilities, timetable and fee, aligned to the DORA timeline and to the entry into application of the relevant regulatory technical standards.
Where an ICT risk framework, incident-management process or third-party programme already exists, we reuse what transfers, adapt what needs adapting and build only what is genuinely missing.
CONNECTED REQUIREMENTS
DORA does not sit in isolation. Where the same systems are subject to information-security, AI governance and data-protection obligations, we align the work so that evidence is produced once and used across each framework.
Reuse compatible information-security management-system structures, risk processes and control evidence where they meet DORA expectations.
Bring AI systems that sit within the ICT perimeter into a coherent AI management system, without duplicating governance.
Coordinate incident-reporting and resilience obligations where entities also fall within the NIS2 regime.
Integrate data-protection accountability and breach-reporting into the ICT incident-management process.
