Business Continuity Planning is a cyclical process of planning, documenting, exercising and executing responses to events that can cause business interruption. Whilst different Business Continuity practitioners may give different answers, there as a strong case for arguing that the Business Impact Analysis process is the single most important step in the Business Continuity Planning.

The Business Impact Analysis is a process that helps understand the organization. There is no prescribed way to perform a BIA; what works in one situation may not be appropriate in another. It can be done in a manual fashion or with the automation assistance of bespoke software. The BIA must deliver a birds eye view of the organization, in documented format. It needs to list all the processes performed and additionally apply a criticality rating to these processes. Various other data pertaining to processes are normally collected at this point such as headcount, process description, process location, process manager, process dependencies, critical equipment, critical applications, critical vendors etc.

If a BIA is performed thoroughly for an organization, it should collect enough data to significantly help with all other aspects of the Business Continuity Planning process, namely BC Planning, BC Exercising and even Crisis Management. For example a BC Plan template can be constructed so that it contains some fixed data and other sections of the plan are populated directly from the BIA. The BIA can also be used to produce a process checklist for BC Exercises. But perhaps the best use of an efficiently performed BIA is during a crisis event. For example, the BIA can be queried to determine which processes are impacted by a fire in floor three of building two. In addition, it may even detail how critical these processes are, who the managers are, what work around steps exist, if any etc. In summary, a thorough, well executed BIA can provide data that significantly eases the follow on steps in the Business Continuity cycle. Some practitioners may argue that the BC Plan or even exercising this BC Plan is the single most important component of BC Planning, but without the solid foundation of a strong Business Impact Analysis, an organization would struggle to both meet it’s audit and compliance commitments, as well as have a recoverable solution that can be implemented at time of event. Hopefully this has provoked some thought around the BIA process and will encourage you to put time and effort into it.

Source by Myles Long