Business Risk Analysis
Business risk analysis involves identifying, assessing, and mitigating potential threats to a company's operations, finances, and reputation. This process helps businesses anticipate and prepare for challenges such as economic downturns, competition, regulatory changes, and natural disasters. By understanding and managing these risks, organizations can make informed decisions to protect their assets and achieve their strategic objectives.
6 Key excerpts on "Business Risk Analysis"
eBook - ePub- James F. Broder, Eugene Tucker(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Butterworth-Heinemann(Publisher)
...15. Business Impact Analysis The purpose of this chapter is to define business impact analysis and contrast it to risk analysis. Business impact analysis (BIA) methodology is also explored, which includes: project planning, data collection, data analysis, presentation of data, and reanalysis. It also supplies and explains resource questionnaires and forms that a security professional could use during analysis. The manner in which the BIA is conducted can help guarantee the success of the entire business continuity process or doom it to failure. Effective project planning, a data collection scheme that returns meaningful information, credible analysis of the data, and a concise presentation of the results to senior management represent key steps of a BIA. Keywords Business impact analysis, project planning, recovery time objects, risk analysis, data collection, data analysis, reanalysis The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. —John F. Kennedy A business continuity plan that is not predicated on or guided by the results of a business impact analysis (BIA) is at best guesswork, is incomplete, and may not function as it should during an actual recovery. The BIA will help the company establish the value of each functional unit and business process as it relates to the organization and not to itself, illustrating which functions need to be recovered and in what order they may need to be recovered. It identifies the financial and subjective consequences to the organization of the loss of its functions over time, highlights interdependencies, and establishes the function’s “outage tolerance” or recovery time objectives (RTOs). Its results are used to determine which functions are the most critical, and at what times they are critical...
eBook - ePub- George Campbell(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Elsevier(Publisher)
...Your department’s programs will enable the business to do what would otherwise be too risky. Measure and communicate that value. The Essentials Depending on the scope of your security responsibilities, there are several relatively common business-based vulnerabilities and risk exposures that you should consider in your risk assessment strategy: 1. Absence or weakness of effective business controls—combined impact of employee empowerment, business velocity, and growth on reliability of controls and effective care 2. Ethical lapses by employees in key positions—maintenance of reputation and avoidance of corporate liability 3. The corporation as a property owner—crime, workplace violence, and premises liability 4. Business interruption—failure to plan and be effectively prepared 5. Adequacy of logical and physical access controls—unauthorized access to our facilities and proprietary information 6. Connectivity and reliability of safeguards—the company’s reliance on technology and critical pathways 7. Lack of business—process-based ownership of security 8. Globalization of the business—internationalization of risk 9. Corporate visibility—the company and key executives as high-profile targets 10. Inadequate focus on security-related risk—maintenance of awareness on risk dynamics Assessing Viable Threats You can find any number of well-done articles on threat assessment. The challenge is defining which threats are real for your organization now and based on where they are going in their evolving business plan. Threat assessment is a critically important product of the security organization, because nobody else has a clue, and no one is doing it in your space. On-line threat-reporting security resources are numerous, but they can only generalize and do little that is specific to your company, unless you have a tailored and contracted service at your disposal. Threat is the source of the risk. The diverse threats confronting our businesses are dynamic, not static...
eBook - ePub- Hans Jonasson(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Auerbach Publications(Publisher)
...As an example, a business may invest in a new order processing product, streamlining the order processing function and integrating it with inventory control. By the time the product is developed, the business may find that the market has changed and the competitors have gone to an e-commerce model, so the product just developed is obsolete as soon as it is rolled out. Clearly, these trends are not always easy to see or predict, but it is important that the questions be asked, and the initial risk assessment is a good place to ask them. Risk assessments are done continuously throughout a business cycle and many of the tools and techniques are the same, regardless of when in the cycle they are performed. Chapter 4 has a more detailed examination of the risk management process. At the stage of strategy analysis, the main risk focus will be on impact to business, capabilities, and organizational readiness. As risk is assessed further and further into the project, the more detailed it will be. During the strategy analysis, most risks will need to be negotiated with management. Later in the project, the project manager will own more of them. 7.5 Preparing the Decision Package There is always someone who will need to make a decision on each idea to determine if it deserves to move on to a full-blown project or if it should be put on the shelf. This may be an executive committee, the business owner, or a product manager. Regardless, the decision maker will need some information to make a good decision. Sometimes, this may be an informal briefing; however, often for large initiatives, there should be a more formal decision package prepared. The business analyst can be a significant player in creating and documenting this package. The main components of this package are items already discussed in this chapter: • Feasibility study report • Business case • Solution scope • Initial risk assessment A good decision package is more than just a summary of these deliverables...
eBook - ePub- Chris March(Author)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...CHAPTER 10 Risk analysis and management 10.1 Introduction Risk has been alluded to and discussed elsewhere in this book and its two companion volumes, but the subject is of such importance it is identified here as a subject in its own right. Risk is associated with everything we do, as individuals, where even the air we breathe can potentially harm us because of pollutants and allergens, and in the workplace. In construction it is usually considered in terms of financial risk and the risks associated with safety. The latter is developed further in Operations Management for Construction, Chapter 4, but many of the principles outlined here are relevant. Risk is defined by HM Treasury as ‘uncertainty of outcome, whether positive opportunity or negative outcome’. However, others believe risk should not be confused with uncertainty, arguing the former is known about and an assessment of its probable impact made, whereas uncertainty is not known about and can have either a negative or positive effect. Clearly there is a conflict of views on this matter and the reader is well advised to seek clarification when reading others’ discourses. There is a strong correlation between risk management and value engineering. The two subjects are linked as any value management judgement can alter the risk. Risk management is concerned with identifying relevant risks, assessing their likelihood and impact, and deciding how best to manage them. It is not about avoiding risk, for to do so would remove any entrepreneurial spirit in a team and life would be come boring. Risk taking is part of normal business practice; what needs to be done is to take calculated risks. There is a difference between accepting risk and ignoring it...
eBook - ePub- Priti Sikdar(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Auerbach Publications(Publisher)
...Business resilience is built on a recovery infrastructure and an organized data-recovery system and for establishing these requirements, a financial outlay or budget is necessary. Buy-in is critical in order to set the system for management oversight and allocate resources to make and implement a resilience system. Effectiveness of the business impact analysis is reflected by the management’s commitment of people and technological resources to mitigate risks of business continuity projected by the findings. Format for Management Report There is no standardized format for a business impact analysis report, but every organization has some standard reporting formats and the management may want you to prepare the report in that format. Generally, a PowerPoint presentation to top management is the order of the day. Wherever possible, the insertion of graphs to represent relations, single point of failure, risk bifurcation, and so on would be visually understandable. A detailed report to the functional management prior to that to deliberate on risks, controls, IT agreement on RTO and RPO, and other factors can be distributed for getting sign off on findings, observations, and recommended controls. Contents of the Report A BIA report must consider the internal and external environments that impact the business as also the risks affecting the financial viability and market standing of the organization. The format and style of reporting and the level of detail portrayed depend on the level of management interest, comprehensibility, and time allotment to the project...
eBook - ePubBusiness Continuity from Preparedness to Recovery
A Standards-Based Approach
- Eugene Tucker(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Butterworth-Heinemann(Publisher)
...The BIA report is one of the most important documents within the Business Continuity Management System. It must provide an understanding of the negative impacts over time that the failure to provide these products, processes, and services would have on the organization. It describes the risk to the organization of not resuming its business activities. The report can begin with an introduction that describes the purpose of the analysis and must describe the business impact analysis process, including the processes used to analyze the data to arrive at the assigned priorities. The scope of the analysis is discussed and should include a high-level list of products, processes, or services that were excluded from the scope of the analysis. The rationale for any exclusion should also form part of the discussion. If the list of exclusions and the rationales for their exclusion are extensive, consider including the detail in an appendix. A list of all personnel and/or third parties who were interviewed or participated in the analysis should be listed along with their titles or positions. If an outside consultant was used, their affiliation can also be listed. Significant documents reviewed can be summarized with the detail (if lengthy) included in an appendix. Because this can be a lengthy report, it is important that an executive summary is compact but complete and, as most executive summaries are, included early in the report. Describe the nature of the organization, but from a high level in the summary with the appropriate amount of detail in the body of the report. Also, discuss the overall impact to products and services and the overall impact of the organization’s inability to meet its goals after a disaster, listing the most vulnerable functions or those with the greatest gaps with a description of the risk and financial and operational impacts. Tables that illustrate the risks and rankings can supplement the discussion...
