Business Impact Analysis helps you to take action. Solving unexpected problems in the business world is now very easy.
Table of Contents
Business Impact Analysis
Business continuity encompasses the entire business, but focuses on the goods and services that are important to the firm, the processes that make them happen, and the resources that support them.
So, this approach to focus on important goods, services and processes also gives us the opportunity to use company resources more efficiently and more effectively against extraordinary situations.
We call scope analysis the identification of goods, services, processes and relevant stakeholders that are important to the firm.
Moreover, after a business interruption event, we call it a business impact analysis study to determine the necessary resources and methods for pre-event processes.
The firm must first determine the goods and services that are important for the continuity of the business’s future.
So while doing this, the company must first define the impact criteria and evaluate the importance/value of each good and service according to these criteria.
Please note this point: the effects of the goods and services interruption on the company require analysis.The same criteria apply to all goods and services.
Business Impact Analysis and Evaluation Criteria
Effects on the firm that is unable to provide goods or services.
- Legal, Financial, Customer loss and Reputation and image impact
Think the Worst Take the Action
“Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” You may have heard that from somewhere. This is the motto of the famous Murphy’s Law.
Problems, failures, and delays are unavoidable. While we can’t always avoid difficulties, we can take efforts to reduce the effects of disasters and other disruptive occurrences.
If a business has suffered losses if production has stopped, the consequences are unavoidable:
This tragic situation adversely affects thousands of people and their supply chain.
The disruptions that businesses face can have deadly consequences.
Unexpected events can knock on your door at any time. If such bad possibilities exist, every company needs a this analysis.
Business Impact Analysis Method
First of all, it is important to identify the stakeholders of the company and the goods and services offered to these stakeholders.
Then it is necessary to define the processes that realize these goods and services..
Subsequently, the level of post-interruption loss impact over time should be determined for each criterion, taking into account the financial and non-financial maximum endurance.
Business impact analysis is a comprehensive analysis study; in this context:
What should be done to ensure that the goods and services determined within the scope of business continuity can be offered again after a possible interruption;
It is necessary to identify the resources needed and alternative methods of doing business.
What are Business Impact Analyses And Types?
Business impact analysis is a solution for crises. It is a series of operations in a race against time in a crisis.
Anticipates the effects of possible business disruption and assesses the situation. Natural disasters can cause crises as well as people.
Business Impact Analysts use strategies to prevent these situations or minimize harm.
Let’s take a look at two types of impact analysis.
Analyses of Basic Business Impact
- The Basic BIA is a condensed form of the Comprehensive BIA and is used for less important systems and applications that may be restored after the disaster has occurred.
- Comprehensive analysis refers to the comprehensive business impact study that must be completed for all important systems or applications within 24 hours of the event.
A Comprehensive Business Impact Analysis Operation
Comprehensive analysis is the complete business impact analysis for any critical system or application. you must restore itwithin 24 hours after the disaster occurred.
This type of analysis is very similar to risk assessment. Sometimes these two concepts can cause confusion.
If you’re a little confused, let’s try to explain,
Business impact analysis aims to validate identified business requirements by showing how business continuity requirements, resource dependencies, and downtime will impact the organization.
On the other hand, risks such as cyber-attacks, fires, network failure, natural disasters, service interruption, supplier-related problems; risk assessment identify and detects security gaps.
Before a risk assessment, business analysts frequently do a BIA.
You have completed BIA, that’s great; the findings are provided in a business impact analysis report by the responsible team.
What are the Business Impact Analysis Steps?
Certain patterns are fundamental in this type of work. So; impact analyzes are not exempt from this in this case.
The flow of most B IA stages is identical, although there is space for change depending on whether the BIA is performed by business people or third-party consultants. However, in general, this is how a business impact study is created.
Make Contact with Management
Because many managers are suspicious about BIAs, you’ll need their help. Explain what the BIA will do, why it is necessary, and what your team will do.
Prepare Your Questions By Doing Some Preliminary Research On The Business Units.
Collect information on each business unit’s procedures and systems, as well as department overviews and operating hours. Make use of the data to properly frame your queries.
Interviews are vital
Use the questions you came up with to gain a better understanding of the needed systems and applications, critical processes, critical and non-critical needs and dependencies for each unit.
Send The Whole Analysis To Each Participant.
Request that each interviewee reread the BIA and provide any changes, comments, or modifications. Give yourself a one-week deadline.
Gather All Of the İnformation And Analyze İt.
Collect all of the data together and decide and what is most important from the viewpoint of the business unit and the process. Look for and fix any abnormalities you find.
Make a management report and send it to higher authorities.
A broad BIA process overview, business process critical ranking, an action plan, further findings, supporting information (e.g., interviews, data tables), and a conclusion should all be included in the report.
Formulate Recovery Plans
Design recovery plans and solutions for your organization’s most important systems. These strategies should be based on recovery point and recovery time targets.
See Also
The Four Types of Business Analytics: Driving Better Business Decisions
Ananya Prisha is an enterprise level Agile coach working out of Hyderabad (India) and also founder of High Level PM Consultancy. Her goal has been to keep on learning and at the same time give back to the community that has given her so much.