Business impact analysis (BIA) means precisely what it says—it’s an investigation into what impact any negative, disruptive event could have on your workforce, customers, and institution. How much downtime will be experienced? How will productivity be affected? And how much revenue could be lost? Knowing the answers to these questions can help your organization prepare for and respond to the unexpected.
What are your most critical business functions? If hampered or halted, what processes would bring your operations to a standstill? And what will that mean (in the short and long term) for your bank, credit union, or other financial institution?
On the surface, the advantage of having a business impact analysis is knowing the answers to these questions. On a deeper level, it also means gaining a comprehensive understanding of the potential impacts of various disruptions so you can better protect those processes that are most critical to your business and your customers.
Should the threat be a natural disaster, cyber attack, or supply chain disruption, you’ll know how to avoid surprises and prevent unnecessary complications. That’s peace of mind. The team at ImageQuest thinks you deserve to rest easy, knowing you’re prepared.
Let’s talk about it. Contact us to schedule a no-cost consultation.
Perhaps you’ve been mandated to conduct a business impact analysis. Maybe an incident has spurred you to be better prepared in the future. Or, maybe you just want your bank or financial firm to be the best it can be—robust and ready to weather any storm.
By aligning all the components of your business impact analysis with your organization’s goals, our team helps you define your threat universe and operational vulnerabilities and to develop effective strategies to avoid or recover from whatever comes your way.
When you entrust your BIA to ImageQuest, you can expect us to do the following:
This involves recognizing all the key business processes and functions that are essential for your organization’s operations. These may include customer service, production, sales, IT infrastructure, supply chain management, and more.
This component includes identifying and analyzing potential risks that could disrupt your organization’s operations. These threats include things like natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, etc.), technological failures, cyber attacks, pandemics, and supply chain disruptions.
Organizations need to assess the potential impacts of different disruptive events on their critical business functions. This includes analyzing possible financial, operational, reputational, and regulatory impacts of each scenario.
This measures potential losses and impacts associated with each identified scenario. It may include estimating financial losses, operational downtimes, loss of productivity, reputational damage, regulatory fines, and more.
You’ll need to establish recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) for each critical business function. RTO defines the maximum tolerable downtime for each function, while RPO states the maximum tolerable data loss.
Organizations should identify dependencies between different business functions and processes, as well as dependencies on external vendors, suppliers, and partners. This will prove essential in developing effective recovery strategies.
Based on the BIA’s findings, ImageQuest can also help you develop mitigation and recovery strategies to minimize the impact of disruptions. These business continuity strategies may include implementing redundancy measures, backup systems, alternate suppliers, disaster recovery plans, etc.
Finally, all findings and recommendations from the BIA will be documented in a comprehensive roll-up report. Your BIA report provides the risk intelligence needed for developing effective business continuity plans, disaster recovery plans, and risk management strategies.
When you have a business impact analysis or assessment in place, every area of your business will be illuminated. You’ll see potential risks that you hadn’t considered before, in areas such as:
When you work with ImageQuest to conduct a business impact analysis, you’ll see all your business operations in a new light. You’ll gain a deeper understanding of what processes directly and indirectly affect others. You’ll also learn how each may disrupt your various areas of your operations if they’re disabled to any degree.
Looking for more insights into how you can help your bank, wealth management firm, or financial institution weather any storm? Talk to ImageQuest about your institution’s BIA today.
Identifying how every process fits into the big picture and what the effects could be if compromised gives you the ability to look ahead with confidence.
Contact ImageQuest today to schedule your business impact analysis. Your organization’s future depends on it.