Business Impact Analysis

A Business Impact Analysis (BIA) aims to pinpoint the critical business processes and technology elements that would face the most significant financial, operational, customer, and/or legal and regulatory impacts during a disaster. The primary goal of a BIA is to identify all essential resources, systems, facilities, records, etc., necessary for business continuity. Additionally, it aims to determine the time required to recover such resources.

Once the data is gathered, a thorough analysis of all requirements, dependencies, and impacts will be conducted. Subsequently, a final report with recommendations for recovery strategies will be formulated and presented to senior management. This enables the business to decide which recovery strategies and solutions to implement.

It’s important to note that the Business Impact Analysis is just one aspect of the broader Business Assessment. The Business Assessment comprises Risk Assessment (RA) and Business Impact Analysis (BIA). While the Risk Assessment identifies existing vulnerabilities within the business’s environment, the Business Impact Analysis assesses the potential losses that could occur during a disaster. To fully leverage the business impact analysis, it is advisable to conduct a risk assessment.

Objectives of the Business Impact Analysis

The Business Impact Analysis (BIA) serves to quantify the adverse effects on the business resulting from the loss of business operations or processes. Based on the severity of these impacts, an appropriate recovery strategy is chosen to address them. The objectives of the Business Impact Analysis include:

  • Identifying all business processes within each business unit.
  • Determining each process’s financial, customer, operational, legal, and/or regulatory impacts.
  • Establishing the time frames within which business and technology processes must be restored.
  • Defining key internal and external relationships and dependencies of each process.
  • Identifying the necessary resources required for each process’s recovery and associated recovery time frames.
  • Providing a foundation for the Risk Assessment Process.
  • Educating and engaging individuals who are critical to the recovery process.
  • Raising awareness throughout the corporation on Continuity Management.

Once the assessment is completed, a business can make informed decisions regarding methods of mitigating risks. A business can implement the most effective strategies for Business Resumption Planning by conducting a Risk Assessment and Business Impact Analysis.

We offer various BIA template packages tailored to your specific needs. Click on the individual template package to view its table of contents. If you would like a sample, please email us at Bob@supremusgroup.com, and we will gladly send one for your review.

If you are planning a comprehensive Business Impact Analysis (BIA), Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP), Business Continuity Planning (BCP), Emergency Mode Operation Plan (EMOP), Risk Assessment (RA), Data Center Recovery Plan, testing and revision plan, complete with templates, policies, procedures, checklists, matrices, forms, guidelines, worksheets, methodologies, tools, and standards, we recommend considering our complete suite—the enterprise-wide business disaster recovery plan template suite.

Sample Text from Documents in Template Suite

Conducting a Business Impact Analysis Guide

Objective

This business impact assessment template document is purposely created to identify the key business processes and technology components that would suffer the greatest financial, operational, customer, and/or legal and regulatory loss in the event of a disaster. The main intent of a BIA is to identify all the critical resources, systems, facilities, records, etc., that are required for the continuity of the business. Additionally, the time it would take to recovery such resources will be identified. The following documents are offered to help the business complete the assessment:

  1. Business Impact Analysis Template (both short and long versions)
  2. Application & Data Criticality Template
  3. Final Business Unit Report Template
  4. Final Executive Management Report Template
  5. Examples of Impact

The BIA is used to quantify adverse impacts to the business caused by a loss of business operations (functions/processes). Based on the level of impact, the appropriate recovery strategy is selected to mitigate these impacts.

Table of Contents of Conducting a Business Impact Analysis

INTRODUCTION

  1. Compliance
  2. Scope

BUSINESS IMPACT ANALYSIS

  1. Objectives of the Business Impact Analysis
  2. Developing the Project Plan
  3. BIA Process Steps

PHASE ONE – PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

  1. Scope
  2. Objectives and Deliverables
  3. Method of Collection
  4. Identify People
  5. Interview Order

PHASE TWO – GATHER DATA

  1. Information
  2. Process Information
  3. Dependencies
  4. Required Resources
  5. Potential Impact

PHASE THREE – APPLICATION & DATA CRITICALITY

  1. Application Information
  2. Database Information
  3. Hardware Information
  4. Network Information

PHASE FOUR – ANALYZE THE DATA

  1. Review Business Unit BIA
  2. Follow-Up Meetings
  3. Report the Results

FINAL REPORT & PRESENTATION

  1. Creation of Executive Report
  2. Presentations

NEXT STEPS

APPENDIX

  • Appendix A: Business Impact Analysis Short Template
  • Appendix B: Business Impact Analysis Long Version Template
  • Appendix C: Application & Data Criticality Analysis Template
  • Appendix D: Final Business Unit Report Template
  • Appendix E: Final Executive Report Template
  • Appendix F: Sample BIA Questions
  • Appendix G: Examples of Impacts

Long Version Business Impact Analysis Template

Objectives

Due to many regulatory compliance regulations, the organization must implement Business Impact Analysis, Business Continuity, and Disaster Recovery Planning Practices to make sure the protection of data. In order to carry out this undertaking, there are numerous steps that organization will be implemented to detect critical business functions, processes, and applications that process to safeguard data and to understand the potential impact to the business if a disruptive event occurred.

The first step of implementing the Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Program for the organization is to conduct a Business Impact Analysis. This questionnaire will assist each business unit to detect their critical business functions and recovery requirements in addition to estimating the impact of a disaster (or prolonged outage) to the business unit. Once the survey is completed, the Business Impact Analysis Project team will review the data, analyze and create a prioritized recovery strategy to present to senior management.

For the purpose of this Business Impact Analysis, answer each question based on the “worst-case scenario”. This means your workplace and all records; files and equipment in it are inaccessible. The priority of this questionnaire is to make out any business process or application that at present contains vital data. However, please answer all questions regardless of data status. By completing all questions to the best of your knowledge, a recovery strategy that best meets the need of the business can be established.

A few questions will be directly associated with a specific process whereas other questions are of the business unit in general. Some sections contain an additional “Notes” area to amplify or explain your responses. While this is not an obligation, it can be helpful in serving the Project Team understand the nature of your business unit operations.

Table of Contents: Business Impact Analysis Survey Template

OBJECTIVE

GENERAL INFORMATION

  1. Respondent Information
  2. Business Unit / Department Information
  3. Vital Service Providers
  4. Business Unit Vulnerability
  5. Recovery Complexity

PROCESS INFORMATION

  1. Process Identification
  2. Process Criticality & Frequency
  3. Processing Periods
  4. Process Unavailability Impact
  5. Process Deferrable
  6. Manual Work – Around Procedures for Processes& Alternate Facilities / Work-load shifting
  7. Backlog Work

DEPENDENCIES

  1. Internal Received Dependencies (Same Company)
  2. Internal Sent Dependencies (Same Company)
  3. External Received Dependencies (Outside Provider)
  4. External Sent Dependencies (Outside Provider)

REQUIRED RESOURCES

  1. Software Resources
  2. Specialized Supplies and Clerical Type Resources
  3. Equipment Resources
  4. Manpower Resources
  5. Reports

POTENTIAL IMPACT

  1. Financial Impact
  2. Customer & Operational Impact
  3. Legal & Regulatory Impact

Final BIA Executive Management Report Templates w/ Charts

Executive Overview

Objectives

The purpose of the Business Impact Analysis (BIA) Template was to facilitate organization to make out which business units, operations, and processes are essential to the endurance of the business. The Business Impact Analysis has identified the time frames in which indispensable business operations have to be reinstated to full functionality following a disruptive event. It has identified the business impact of not performing critical business operations based on a worst-case scenario. The BIA has also identified the resources necessary to resume business operations to a functioning level.

A worst-case scenario presumes that the physical infrastructure supporting each individual business unit has been destroyed and all records, equipment, etc are not approachable within 30 days.

The overall objectives for this Business Impact Analysis were to:

  1. Estimate the financial, customer/operation, and legal/regulatory impacts for each major business unit, assuming a worst-case scenario>
  2. Determine the estimated number of personnel required for recovery operations
  3. Identify the critical business functions, business unit processes and the estimated Recovery Time Objective (RTO) for each business unit.
  4. Provide a foundation for implementing Regulatory Compliance Plans.

The RTO is the extremely acceptable time a process can be not working following an outage / disruptive event.

These timeframes may have to be re-evaluated to meet the necessities of the Technology capabilities. If the capabilities of technology do not meet the requirements of the business unit, a gap exists. These gaps must be lessened to prevent extended outages and impact to your organization.

Table of Contents: Executive BIA Finding Report

EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW

  1. Objectives
  2. Scope
  3. Approach
  4. Department Responses and Findings

BUSINESS UNIT RESULTS

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

  1. Combined Financial Impact Combined Customer/Operational
  2. Impact Combined Legal and/or Regulatory Impact Recovery Personnel
  3. Requirements& Recovery Time Objectives for Business Processes
  4. Manual Work-Around Processes Work Backlog Processing Recovery
  5. Complexity for Business Units

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX

  1. APPENDIX A – BIA QUESTIONNAIRE
  2. APPENDIX B – INDIVIDUAL FULL DEPARTMENT RESPONSES
  3. APPENDIX C – BLANK DEPARTMENT OVERVIEW
  4. FORM APPENDIX D – CUMULATIVE REPORT CHART TEMPLATES

Final Business Unit Report Template w/ Charts

Location of Department:
Participant: Date of Report:

 

The interview was conducted by on .

Overview of Business Unit (Department)

The Department is responsible for

Business Processes

Vital Data Information

Vendors

Internal Dependencies

External Dependencies

Applications

Business Impact Analysis Policy

Purpose:

The Business Impact Analysis Policy document establishes the activities that need to be implemented by each Business Department, Technology Department, and Corporate Department within the organization.

All departments within the organization must utilize this methodology to identify the processes they perform, the required resources to perform those processes, the timeframes in which those processes need to be recovered, any supporting dependencies, resources, facilities, etc, and the potential financial, operational, and legal/regulatory impact for the processes.

Table of Contents

TERMINOLOGY
ACCOUNTABILITY
COMPLIANCE
REVISION HISTORY
ENDORSEMENT

I. POLICY OVERVIEW

A. Purpose
B. Scope
C. Ownership Roles & Responsibilities
D. Review Process
E. Reporting Process
F. Update Frequency and Annual Review
G. Approval

II. BIA REQUIREMENTS

A. BIA Completion
B. Business Process Identification
C. Business Process Recovery Time Objective
D. Financial Impact
E. Operational Impact
F. Legal and Regulatory Impact
G. Manual Work-Around Procedures
H. Required Resource

III. BIA RESULTS

A. Overall RTO for Department
B. Communication
C. Retention of BIA Survey

APPENDIX

APPENDIX A: BUSINESS IMPACT ANALYSIS STANDARDS

Applications and Data Criticality Analysis Template

Objective

The intention of the Application and Data Criticality Analysis is to find out the criticality to business associates of all application based components and the probable losses which may perhaps be incurred if these components were not available for a period of time. This questionnaire is designed to collect the information essential to hold up the development of alternative processing strategies, solutions and IS Recovery plans.

The Business Impact Assessment (BIA) should be completed prior to this engagement. The results of the Business Impact Assessment should be used to assess technology requirements based on the business needs.

The questionnaire also serves as a compliance method for meeting the Regulatory Compliance Security Rule requirements for Application and Data Criticality Analysis.

Table of Contents of Applications and Data Criticality Analysis Template

OBJECTIVE

RESPONDENT INFORMATION

APPLICATION INFORMATION

Application Information
Application Specifications
Application Users
Application Service Providers
Application Vulnerability
Application Recovery Plan
Application Recovery History
Application Standard Operating Procedures
Application Source Code and Backup Information
Application Dependencies
Application Data Reconstruction

DATABASE INFORMATION

Database Information
Database Service Providers
Database Vulnerability
Database Recovery Complexity
Database Recovery Information
Database Recovery History
Database Standard Operating Procedures
Database Backup Information
Database Backup Tape Information

HARDWARE (SYSTEM) INFORMATION

Hardware Information
Hardware Environment Information
Hardware Service Providers
Hardware Vulnerability
Hardware Recovery Complexity
Hardware Recovery Plan
Hardware Recovery History
Hardware Backup Information
Hardware Backup Tape Information

NETWORK INFORMATION

Network Equipment Requirements
Network Service Providers
Network Vulnerability
Network Recovery Complexity
Network Recovery Plan
Network Recovery History
Network Standard Operating Procedures

Note: We offer 7 days money-back guarantee to all USA companies. If you purchased templates without seeing samples and you are dissatisfied with our product, you will receive a full refund if you cancel your purchase & return the product within 7 days of buying the templates.

Business Impact Analysis Template Packages:

Following Business Impact Analysis templates packages are available to suit your needs. Click on the individual template with a link to view its table of content.

Package 5: Business Impact Analysis (BIA) Package with Policies and Applications & Data Criticality Analysis Bundle
Top Sellers

  1. Conducting a Business Impact Analysis Guide (23 pages)
  2. Long Version Business Impact Analysis Template (21 pages)
  3. Example of Completed Long Version BIA (24 pages)
  4. Short Version Business Impact Analysis Template (6 pages)
  5. Example of Completed Short Version BIA (4 pages)
  6. Final BIA Executive Management Report Templates w/ Charts (32 pages)
  7. Final Business Unit Report Template w/ Charts (11 pages)
  8. Example Final Executive Management Report (40 pages)
  9. Example Final Business Unit Report (8 pages)
  10. Business Impact Analysis Policy (12 pages)
  11. Business Impact Analysis Standard (14 pages)
  12. Policy & Standards Instructions (3 pages)
  13. Applications and Data Criticality Analysis Template  (24 pages)
  14. Example of Completed Application and Data Criticality Analysis Template (39 pages)

Cost: $270
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Package 4: Business Impact Analysis Bundle Complete Package with Policies (Click here for More Details….)

  1. Conducting a Business Impact Analysis Guide (23 pages)
  2. Long Version Business Impact Analysis Template (21 pages)
  3. Example of Completed Long Version BIA (24 pages)
  4. Short Version Business Impact Analysis Template (6 pages)
  5. Example of Completed Short Version BIA (4 pages)
  6. Final BIA Executive Management Report Templates w/ Charts (32 pages)
  7. Final Business Unit Report Template w/ Charts (11 pages)
  8. Example Final Executive Management Report (40 pages)
  9. Example Final Business Unit Report (8 pages)
  10. Business Impact Analysis Policy (12 pages)
  11. Business Impact Analysis Standard (14 pages)
  12. Policy & Standards Instructions (3 pages)

Cost: $210
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Microsoft Project Templates for Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning

Package 1: Microsoft Project Templates for Enterprise Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning including BIA and Risk Assessment.

Price: $99

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To view a specific section of this document, please contact us at Bob@supremusgroup.com or call us at (515) 865-4591.

To buy individual template packages, visit the following links:

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