Purpose

Identify critical activities and dependencies and establish approved recovery priorities and objectives. The Business Impact Analysis (BIA) identifies the impact of disruptions on critical functions and defines the metrics necessary for survival and compliance.

Preconditions

  • Current service, process, system, data, personnel, premises and supplier inventories are available.
  • Responsible service and process owners participate.

Steps

#ActionDetailsEvidence
1Identify critical functionsBusiness services, activities, regulatory obligations within scope; functions necessary for survival and complianceCritical function inventory
2Assess impact over timeOperational, customer, financial, legal, regulatory, reputational impacts of disruptionImpact assessment
3Identify dependenciesPersonnel, premises, technology, information, and third-party dependenciesDependency inventory
4Determine MTPDMaximum Tolerable Period of Disruption for each critical function — max unavailability before unacceptable damageMTPD register
5Establish RTOs and RPOsRecovery Time Objectives to restore operations; Recovery Point Objectives for acceptable data loss; consistent with impact toleranceRTO/RPO register
6Prioritize recoveryIdentify minimum resource and operating-capacity requirements for recoveryRecovery priority list
7Obtain owner approvalManagement review, resolve inconsistencies, record approvalApproved BIA
8Review BIA periodicallyAt least annually and after significant organizational or technological changesReview record

Exceptions and Escalation

Conflicting recovery objectives, unsupported objectives or missing critical dependencies shall be escalated to management for risk acceptance or treatment.

Records

  • Completed and approved BIA
  • Critical activity and dependency inventory
  • MTPD, RTO and RPO register
  • Review and change records

Relationships

Assurance

Runtime effectiveness results are maintained in Odoo and assessed through the Hermes workflow tracked in ISS-HERMES-001. This note defines design, ownership, evidence expectations and testing method; it does not contain a manually maintained operation, evidence or overall effectiveness rating.

  • Frequency: annual and after significant change

History

  • 2026-07-26: Created from section 6 of the approved Business Continuity Manual.