Importance of Risk Assessment in Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning
Risk Assessment is one of the key important steps while preparing a healthy Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan.
Why is it important?
A comprehensive risk assessment exercise will help an organization to understand the wide-ranging threats it can be exposed to, the possible extent of damage and therefore the required steps for damage control. A healthy Risk Assessment helps to determine how each functional area of a business would be impacted in the event of a crisis (Manmade or Natural) and it further helps in prioritizing recovery plans based on the criticality of the functions.
The most important task of a risk assessment process is to pre-determine the possible scenarios of disaster and followed steps that the organization will take to recover business operation in the event of each. Preparation of long list for covering all possible crisis scenarios is a challenging task, crisis event list will never seem to be comprehensive enough and it is an ongoing update process. One way of handling this effectively is by using an excel template with well defined parameters Or a healthy tool that will help you cover all crisis scenarios while working on risk assessment.
Another approach while performing Risk Assessment is ‘thinking through’ the worst-case scenarios: scenarios like complete shutdown of a delivery center/or office facility completely damaged during natural crisis. It helps the business to evaluate the extent of damage and think through the recovery process in the event of this worst-case scenario.
While performing Risk Assessment, the bottom-line is how any catastrophe event would affect the business, the infrastructure and the company in general. A healthy risk assessment should have plenty of “what-if” scenarios and Risk Treatment plan against each scenario.
As part of the strategy and to ensure business continuity, suitable risk treatment plans shall be identified and implemented to reduce the likelihood of disruption,
Why is it important?
A comprehensive risk assessment exercise will help an organization to understand the wide-ranging threats it can be exposed to, the possible extent of damage and therefore the required steps for damage control. A healthy Risk Assessment helps to determine how each functional area of a business would be impacted in the event of a crisis (Manmade or Natural) and it further helps in prioritizing recovery plans based on the criticality of the functions.
The most important task of a risk assessment process is to pre-determine the possible scenarios of disaster and followed steps that the organization will take to recover business operation in the event of each. Preparation of long list for covering all possible crisis scenarios is a challenging task, crisis event list will never seem to be comprehensive enough and it is an ongoing update process. One way of handling this effectively is by using an excel template with well defined parameters Or a healthy tool that will help you cover all crisis scenarios while working on risk assessment.
Another approach while performing Risk Assessment is ‘thinking through’ the worst-case scenarios: scenarios like complete shutdown of a delivery center/or office facility completely damaged during natural crisis. It helps the business to evaluate the extent of damage and think through the recovery process in the event of this worst-case scenario.
While performing Risk Assessment, the bottom-line is how any catastrophe event would affect the business, the infrastructure and the company in general. A healthy risk assessment should have plenty of “what-if” scenarios and Risk Treatment plan against each scenario.
As part of the strategy and to ensure business continuity, suitable risk treatment plans shall be identified and implemented to reduce the likelihood of disruption,