A matrix for your business impact analysis doesn’t need to be complicated. It’s really a compilation of the information you’ve gathered through the business impact analysis process, tailored to the needs of your organization.
A sample matrix spreadsheet can include the following columns:
- Business function name
- Business function definition
- Business unit
- Outage duration (One: from 0 to 12 hours; Two: from 12 to 24 hours; Three: from 24 to 72 hours; Four: from 72 hours to 1 week; Five: over a week)
- Financial impact (low, medium or high for each level of outage duration)
- Operational impact (low, medium or high for each level of outage duration)
- Regulatory or legal impact (low, medium or high for each level of outage duration)
- Customer impact (low, medium or high for each level of outage duration)
- Reputation impact (low, medium or high for each level of outage duration)
- RTO
- RPO
- Dependencies
- Can IT meet RTO?
- Technology RTO
Throughout the process, keep in mind that your business impact analysis eliminates the need to guess, helping you make good decisions when a crisis occurs.
Download the Definitive Guide to Business Continuity Planning to learn more.