A Fresh Perspective On Business Continuity Planning

The business impact analysis (BIA) is the cornerstone of the business continuity programme. So if you conducted one prior to developing your business continuity plans, congratulations.

However, a common mistake is to think of the BIA as a one-off exercise. It shouldn’t be. It needs to be revisited from time to time to ensure plans and strategies continue to be applicable.

So you need to periodically review the BIA (or to do one if you haven’t already!).

It may not be necessary to perform a full-blown BIA again (unless it’s been several years since the last one), but you should at least review the findings and bring it up to date.

• Think about what’s changed – the way the business is organised, movements of key staff, locations, etc;
• Check if there are any recommendations which weren’t acted upon (maybe for budgetary reasons) but which still apply;
• Review Recovery Time and Recovery Point Objectives;
• Confirm whether the current continuity strategies are still applicable and if not, what changes need to be made.

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So, every now and again (perhaps on an annual basis), blow the dust off the BIA report and have a fresh look in light of everything that’s happened since it was written.