Addressing Business Impact Analysis and Business Continuity

Consider a pharmacy with a failed centralized computer system. A person needs a critical prescription refilled immediately. His 24-h pharmacy’s computer system is down within the centralized network, which means that other stores in the chain also lack prescription information. Other pharmacies don’t have his prescription information, and the doctor’s office is closed. This person’s choice is visiting a hospital, hoping computer service resumes, or (at best) being miserable all night. This IT failure impacts organization sales and reputation, and may affect human life. Business Impact Analysis evaluates which services are critical, establishes required timelines for recovery, and also permissible loss of transactions following storage failure. The business continuity process then engineers how to meet those recovery objectives, and how to operate the business when those objectives cannot be met.