Requires Free Membership to View
When you register for SearchDisasterRecovery.com, you’ll also receive targeted emails from my team of award-winning editorial writers. As you know, an interruption can threaten your organization at any time – and it’s our goal to ensure you’re armed with the right tips and information to help you ensure a swift recovery.
Rich Castagna, Editorial Director
However, using business impact analysis software is preferable to not performing a risk assessment or business impact analysis at all. When choosing a business impact analysis software package, look for one that provides some flexibility within the functionality. A product might list 70 to 100 threats within an organization, but you need to be able to gauge which ones are appropriate. Perhaps 20 of these threats don't apply to your business, but you may have 10 additional threats that the package doesn't specify. The ability to modify the package to evaluate threats and associated risks is important. Additionally, your organization may have threats that are more applicable in one geographical area and others somewhere else (for example, hurricanes or snow storms). Choose a product that has the flexibility to handle these types of scenarios.
Also, there are some intangibles that must be evaluated -- things that don't have a specific financial impact, but are an integral part of the organization. This concept may get lost in an all inclusive, business impact analysis template format. While performing a business impact analysis, look at dependencies across the board; a process may not seem important on its own, yet it may be critical to a more profitable process further down the line.
This was first published in August 2010