Stage 1 - Understanding your business
To develop an appropriate business continuity management plan, you must first understand what activities or processes are essential to ensure your business maintains its critical activity.
By undertaking a Business Impact Analysis (BIA), you can identify, quantify and qualify the impacts of a loss, interruption or disruption to your business processes. This will help you identify critical deliverables, evaluate recovery priorities and assess the risks that could lead to a disruption in your business/service delivery.
You should first identify which resources you require to maintain the crucial areas within your business, for example:
- staff
- communications
- data and information
- suppliers
- premises
- plant and specialist equipment
A good Business Impact Analysis (BIA) will help you develop appropriate continuity strategies as part of the next phase of your business continuity management cycle.
Business Impact Analysis (BIA) checklist
- what are the objectives of my organisation?
- how are my business objectives achieved?
- what are the organisation's products/services?
- who is involved (both internally and externally)?
- what are the time imperatives on the delivery of products or services?
Download a 'quick reference' Business Impact Analysis (BIA) guide to assist you with your Business Impact Analysis planning.