The Advantages of Continuous Business Impact Analysis

The business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) software market is currently flooded with varying degrees of continuity manager software that can all perform roughly the same tasks. As a business, this can be in your favor due to supply and demand paving the way for better prices and enhanced competitive features.

Having a business continuity plan is vital for your organization. However, with so many options, it can be overwhelming to sort through all of the available continuity software until you find one that suits your company. In this blog post, we’ll explain what we’ve found to be three of the most valuable features you should ask for in your business continuity manager software. To begin with, let’s discuss a continuous business impact analysis (BIA).

What Is a Continuous BIA?

A BIA is necessary to establish parameters within your organization as to better estimate if there were an incident, what would be the best solution to get your company back on its feet, and how fast you would need to recover.

A continuous BIA (offered in most business continuity software) can be updated regularly so you can ensure compliance with your industry’s regulations and maintain a well-developed plan to coincide with your business’s growth and expansion. It will retain the data from your last update, never resetting or deleting. The interaction that software provides can far outweigh that of a one-time-use template.

How Does a Continuous BIA Keep You Compliant?

No matter the industry, regulations exist to ensure quality, safety, and best practices. These guidelines are also associated with large penalties and fees for not meeting minimum compliance requirements. Every business, with only a few exceptions, is required to have an Emergency Action Plan (EAP). A continuous BIA, unlike simple template forms, allows you to keep your BCDR plan up to date on compliance and government regulations.

By having software that can track the completion of your plan, you are better able to see your progress towards being compliant. Also, because of the control given to the user to update and revise continuity goals, you’ll be able to easily incorporate new regulations as they arise.

How Does a Continuous BIA Accommodate Growth and Expansion?

Profit and customer growth are universal business goals driven by passion and ambition. Because of this, businesses are constantly evolving to the trends of their consumers’ markets to expand reach into new territories.

These expansions could mean new software applications, upgraded tools and equipment, or even an increase in employees. To keep up with the movement of your business and maintain a well-developed and up-to-date BC/DR plan, having the capability to continually update your business’s BIA is crucial.

When was the last time you updated your BIA?