How to Perform Business Continuity Risk Assessment

January 30, 2020

Businesses, both old and new, must withstand the test of time. This could get difficult when there are so many risks that endanger any business. Business continuity is a term used in the context of disasters or incidents that can disrupt your business operations temporarily or even permanently.Planning business continuity means that you ensure that your business remains operational or is at least capable of being restored to an operational state rather quickly. For this to be possible, risk assessment is essential.

Here are some tips on how to perform a business continuity risk assessment.

Identify the risks to your business

The first step of any risk assessment, including a business continuity risk assessment, is to identify what factors threaten your business operations.It could be anything from a natural or a man-made disaster to embezzlement or robberies toan overnight slump in your organization’s reputation. List out all factors that could put your business at risk.

Analyze the impact to your business

Your business may be at risk due to the factors that you identified above. How will these risks impact your business? Think of all possible scenarios specific to your business. Could there be a financial impact? Could the risk affect your staff? Or perhaps your supply chain will be affected?Could an event affect your organization’s reputation and goodwill? Even if only a part of your operation is affected by an incident, the impact could still be huge. Each risk factor should be considered separately when performing a business impact analysis.

Check your current risk management plan

A lot of the identified risk factors that threaten your organization’s operations can be monitored, thanks to modern technology.For instance, some natural disasters and hazards such as hurricanes, snowfall,or floods are easily monitored.However, incidents such as fire, protests, violence,or shootings are not predictable. So, are there engineering controls that can prevent these risks from harming your business? If you do have a risk management plan, check if it is still effective after your inventory of potential threats.

Think of ways to restore your operations

The critical business operations of your business must be recoverable after an unfortunate incident that threatens its continuity. While performing a business continuity risk assessment, you must also have a thorough plan to restore your operations. Could installing a mass communication system through an app or email help limit the threat to
a recoverable level?Have you assigned roles to your staff to deal with each of the business continuity threats you identified?Think of these questions during risk assessment.

Prepare a contingency plan

All businesses should design their physical and digital infrastructure in a way that it is resistant to potential continuity risks. However, in case your business is not resistant or even restorable upon an adverse impact, you must always have a contingency plan.Think of the critical components of your business operations and how you can reestablish these operations in case of business continuity mishap.

Conclusion

Businesses, just like life, are unpredictable. The next time you feel that the continuity of your business may be threatened, follow our tips to assess the risks your business is facing.

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