Business Impact Analysis, Research Paper Example

a. Business functions and processes

These are the most critical components since they have the greatest impact on the operations of the company and potential process of recovery. Employees of a company all have an innate understanding of the business functions and processes within their departments. The operations will succeed if data is gathered and comprehensively developed to meet the mission of the company. The business processes of any given organization entail the mission-critical functions, which are attained through asking by using questionnaires, workshops or even interviews. The objective is to get an answer as to the first five things people would engage in after a disaster in their department subsides. Examples of business functions include operations, research and development, manufacturing, human resources, finance, legal, and sales and marketing among others.

From an IT perspective, the system, network, or application outage (mission-critical) causes extreme business disruption. This outage comes with serious financial and legal ramifications akin to threatening the well-being, safety and health of individuals. Consequently, the systems require significant restoration efforts, but to the rest of the business, these efforts are always disruptive. Therefore, the tolerance for such an outage is exceptionally low, which means that the recovery process is in terms of hours and not days (Snedaker, 2011). The absence of business functions and processes culminate to longer-term impacts that cause business disruptions. For an IT perspective, the systems include databases, Internet access, e-mail and other tools of business used in support functions.

b. BIA scenarios and components

After determining time-critical systems, companies need to track the location of the systems, which includes electronic data, software, and hardware. Hardware comprises of the physical assets like storage devices and network servers. They are used as trackers of database or spreadsheet applications. Software is installed in the system and facilitates the functioning of the hardware. Electronic data is digital information transferred to the software, and this is useful to IT professionals in identifying and prioritizing on risks that lead to disasters.
c. Financial and service impact of components not being available

For any business disruption, service and financial impact points are primary points considered by managers during the recovery process. The service impact in any business addresses the impact of nonmonetary, which includes processes, people, and technology of a business disruption. This entails how best the impact can be addressed. Additionally, the financial impact addresses monetary impacts and addresses how the disruption impacts the revenue of the company.
d. Recovery time frameworks

The Business Impact Analysis from an IT perspective purposes to correlate specific component systems which provide critical services. Based on the information provided, it characterizes disruption consequences to the components of the system. By understanding these interdependencies fully, the IT individual benefits because both the disaster recovery and business continuity are their critical paths (Snedaker, 2011).

a. Component dependencies

Dependencies in this instance affects the business functions and thus, input and output should be clearly noted by stating received input. This can either be external or internal sources of business functions required in the performance and their impacts to other business parts. Resource dependencies will be dependent on key job functions, and this interrupts the functioning of special equipment and contractors among others. Personnel dependencies will examine whether the function is dependent on knowledge, specialized skill, or expertise. The roles and key position of these individuals contributes to the continuity of the business after disaster strikes since the impact will be great on the organization.

Resources required to recover component in the event of failure

In terms of telephony, operational equipment, and computing capacity, greater capacity is required for normal operations in production. The reason for this is that an underestimation is done on the cumulative workload; critical processes coincide at their peaks; and backlog underestimation amount to the lack of capacity. In many companies, it is evident that a decrease of operational capacity decreases and backlog rises (Hiles, 2004, p.79).

Human assets needed to recover components

The occurrence of a natural disaster impacts some or all employees of the company and this possibility cannot be ignored in business continuity or disaster recovery plans. Business functions and processes are assessed, but also a need to identify key positions, key skills and key knowledge is principal for business continuity. For many companies, this is traditionally referred t as succession planning. However, key main insurance is purchased by many companies trading publicly, high profile start ups. The cover of the insurance compensates for the loss of high ranking company executives and thus, the company minimizes their chances of suffering financial losses.

Key positions in succession planning measures include replacing key employees and to transfer company reins from one leader to the next, as a result, of unplanned departure. This planning process comprises of employee training, which enables them move up the corporate ladder to enable them assume leadership positions. This plan helps business continuity to identify who steps up in case a disaster strikes affecting founders of a company.

Effective business continuity plans addresses the human factor because this is the right thing to do as stipulated by company policies. However, if the recovery efforts of IT systems hinges on two experienced network administrators, this becomes a risk. Therefore, the plan needs to develop strategies to mitigate these responses. The second reason for addressing human needs is because this makes good business sense (Snedaker, 2011). Companies should give their employees time to recover since their recovery process affects that of the company. Human assets needed in this instance encompass healthy working environments and work conditions that look into their physical, emotional and psychological aspect of the mind. All these components facilitate a faster recovery process that is more resourceful and valuable to all parties involved.
3. Provide recommendations for the development of the BIA, management and other personnel responsibilities, and educating company personnel that would be involved in the recovery efforts.

BIA development needs to combine additional preparations with DR planning in order to form a BC plan that is comprehensive. This will ensure that businesses maintain continuous operations of activities before, during and after disruptive events and disasters. Different scholars have researched on ways of developing a DR plan that makes certain that time-critical systems in the IT section are restored promptly. It is paramount for companies to guarantee the existence of critical services that can withstand disasters and at the same time improve technology and processes (Snedaker, 2007). This provides an organization with significant competitive advantage thus, strengthening their ability to surpass competitors. Furthermore, organization’s long-term viability should be promoted and maintained. It is essential for companies to have BIA hat are up-to-date with their business processes and functions in order for them to recover from a disaster within the shortest time possible. This reduces on the number of resources used in the recovery process and thus, financial and legal implications are minimal.

References

Hiles, A. (2004). Business Continuity: Best Practices – World-Class Business Continuity Management, Edition 2. New York: Rothstein Associates Inc.

Snedaker, S. (2007). Business continuity & disaster recovery for IT professionals. Burlington: Syngress Publishing, Inc.

Snedaker, S. (2011). Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning for IT Professionals. New York: Butterworth-Heinemann.