Business Impact Analysis

Question 1

BIA is a critical step in….

Answer 1

Developing the business continuity plan

Question 2

What is BIA used for?

Answer 2

It is used to evaluate the critical processes (and IT components supporting them) and to determine time frames, priorities, resources and interdependencies.

Question 3

What should a person do to be able to perform BIA successfully?

Answer 3

Obtain an understanding of the organisation, key business processes and IT resources used by the organisation to support the key business processes.

Question 4

Why are impact bands developed?

Answer 4

To evaluate the impact of downtime for a particular process/application. The impact is estimated in time and the same approach is used for estimating data loss. The same can be done for financial impact by assigning a value to the particular impact band.

Question 5

Name the approaches for performing a BIA.

Answer 5

Questionnaire - develop a detailed questionnaire and circulate to to key users in IT and end-user areas. Information gathered is tabulated and analysed.

Interview groups of key users.

Bring relevant IT personnel and end users together in a room to come to a conclusion regarding the potential business impact of various levels of disruptions.

Question 6

Name the three main questions that should be considered during the BIA phase.

Answer 6

1) What are the different business processes? Are they critical or non-critical?
2) What are the critical information resources related to an organisations critical business processes?
3) What is the critical recovery time period for information resources in which business processing must be resumed before significant or unacceptable losses are suffered?

Question 7

What are the 2 independent cost factors to consider when making decisions?

Answer 7

Downtime cost of disaster

Cost of alternative corrective measures

Question 8

Downtime cost of disaster

Answer 8

This component , in the short run, grows quickly with time, where the impact of a disruption increases the longer it lasts.

Cost of downtime has many components: cost of idle resources, drop in sales, financial costs, delays and indirect costs (loss of market share, image and goodwill).

Question 9

Cost of alternative corrective measures

Answer 9

This cost decreases with the target chosen for recovery time.

This cost also has many components (mostly rigid and inelastic)

Includes cost of preparing and periodically testing the BCP, offsite backup premises, insurance coverage, alternative site arrangements.