What is the most important step in business continuity planning?
Business continuity planning is a cyclical process of planning, documenting, exercising, and executing responses to events that can cause business disruption. While different Business Continuity professionals may give different answers, there is a strong case for arguing that the Business Impact Analysis process is the most important step in Business Continuity Planning.
Business Impact Analysis is a process that helps you understand your 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 manually or with the automation assistance of custom software. The BIA must offer a panoramic view of the organization, in a documented format. You must list all the processes performed and additionally apply a criticality rating to these processes. At this point other process related data is normally collected such as number of employees, process description, process location, process manager, process dependencies, critical equipment, critical applications, critical vendors , etc.
If a BIA is done 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 Exercise, and even Crisis Management. For example, a Plan BC template can be built to contain some fixed data and other sections of the plan are filled directly from the BIA. The BIA can also be used to produce a process checklist for BC exercises. But perhaps the best use of a BIA done efficiently is during a crisis event. For example, the BIA can be consulted to determine which processes are affected by a fire on floor three of building two. In addition, you can even detail how critical these processes are, who are the managers, what steps exist, if any, etc. In short, a complete and well-executed BIA can provide data that significantly makes it easier to track the steps in the Business Continuity cycle. Some professionals may argue that the BC Plan or even the exercise of this BC Plan is the most important component of BC Planning, but without the solid foundation of a solid Business Impact Analysis, an organization would have difficulty meeting its audit commitments. and compliance, as well as having a recoverable solution that can be implemented at the time of the event. Hopefully this has sparked some thought about the BIA process and will encourage you to put time and effort into it.