Business Impact Analysis

Business Impact Analysis (BIA) - This is a critical part of determining what business resources are critical and how much to budget to protect these resources in the event of an emergency. Key components of a Business Impact Analysis are:

• Functions - Understanding and protecting the critical functions of each department in your organization. Your business depends on these for to be fully operational.
   
• Processes - Documenting how critical business functions are performed and what resources are needed to main them.
   
• Resources - Determining which resources must be protected and deciding what to budget to protect them. Business resources include people, technology, and outside services, to name just a few.
   

Some Key Business Resources   Technology - Critical technology resources, such as IT systems and phone systems, need to be reviewed to determine their impact on business operations, should they fail.   Applications - Resources needed to maintain critical applications, such as Email and Accounting, are an important part of setting budgets and priorities.   People - Personnel responsible for keeping critical operations running must be part of the planning process. Keeping these key people in the planning loop is essential to create a viable BC/DR Plan.

Downtime Cost - The financial impact of each business operation must be analyzed. This will also help to set BC/DR Planning priorities and to determine the budget to allocate to protect these critical operations.