Adaptive BC, a website established to develop and promote a new approach to business continuity, has been calling for the elimination of the BIA. In this article David Lindstedt, one of the founders of Adaptive BC, explains why.
The business impact analysis (BIA) has been a staple of business continuity for decades. In that time, the BIA has grown, expanded, and become rather nebulous in its scope, objectives, and value. By exploring both its initial purpose and current implementation, we can conclude that early benefits gained from the BIA no longer outweigh the disadvantages, and that practitioners ought to eliminate the use of the BIA as much and as soon as feasible.
Part one: genesis
What was the BIA when it came into use? The original intent of the BIA was to estimate the impact that a significant incident would have on the business. More accurately, it was to estimate the different types of impact that a significant incident would have on different parts of the business. As the BCI DRJ Glossary states, even today the BIA is defined simply as the, “Process of analyzing activities and the effect that a business disruption might have on them.”
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