Asset Management and Budgetary Control
One of the major financial functions is the management of fixed assets. Asset management module primarily maintains asset register, which provides information about asset related transactions. Asset Management thus helps in keeping track of fixed assets, handling fixed asset depreciation for fiscal reporting and revaluation of asset. Budgetary control (BC) module is another important finance […]
Human Resource Information System (HRIS): Meaning, Evolution and its Features
In the contemporary scenario of modernization and globalization, organizations heavily rely upon technological advancement and innovation in the field of Information Technology. Advancements in the field of IT has opened up newer avenues for the organizations and provided a competitive advantage by using innovative and customized solutions. It has become an integral part of the […]
What is China Plus Strategy and Why it Can Become a Game Changer for the Indian Economy?
How, China Known as the Factory of the World Is Losing Its Seen Due To the China plus Strategy China is known as the “factory of the world”. This is because it is the world leader in hosting manufacturing plants of Western multinationals, who have moved their offshore production facilities since the 1970s there, attracted […]
The Mobile Wave is the Wave of the Future
The evolution of media and its interaction with business trends has gone through several waves. If it was Web 1.0 with the introduction of the internet, then it was Web 2.0 with the explosion of social media. Both these waves of innovation revolutionized the virtual world and gave new meanings to how we live, shop, […]
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery – Important For Every Business and Organisation
Managing Business operations in current times is a big challenge. Apart from having to keep looking at the bottom lines and market shares, the managements have another major are to be concerned about which is to continually keep assessing the risk to the business from all quarters and build Disaster Recovery plan in place. It […]
The concept of insurance came about in the business field to cover the risk of loss of assets due to natural and manmade disasters as well as other calamities.
In the current times, Organizations especially those which are dependant heavily on IT systems have begun to look at preventive steps as well as plan for recovery in case of any disaster striking and paralyzing the business. Thus Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity plans have emerged as a Must Have management practice.
When compared to insurance, DR & BC also look at the risk element involved in the business, processes as well as assets and human lives etc. However Insurance aims at making good the loss while DR looks at similar risk elements as insurance but focuses on recovering the assets, data and other processes etc.
Business continuity plan looks at, getting some critical processes and aspects of business up and running as fast as possible in the event of a disaster. While insurance focuses primarily on physical assets, DR & BC focus mainly on preventing any loss or disturbance to the business.
Business Impact Analysis is one of the most important parts of the DR & BC plan. It is here that the estimation and analysis of all possible risks to business is enumerated and identified.
It should be noted here that the BIA analysis risks and measures its impact to the business. Therefore the business loss is identifiable and quantifiable. DR & BC plans do not end with just the Business Impact Analysis (BIA). It aims to calculate and establish limits up to which the losses can be sustained.
Every Business Impact Analysis determines the recovery time objective of a business taking into account each of the analyzed risks. Against each failure or disruption, a calculation of the lead time taken to get the system or process up and running is required to be calculated.
Against the recovery time, there needs to be an analyses and discussion to determine how much time the Organization can afford to withstand the disruption to the business without losses. Such time is known as the Recovery time objective which the DR plan needs to peg on for planning recovery exercise.
Some businesses might withstand a loss of business for one day or in some cases it could be in terms of few hours. The RTO then becomes the primary target to be achieved.
Every business process or system recovery attempted can be started from a fixed point of time. This concept of point of time of recovery can be easily understood with the help of a common example.
If in an Organization, the system back up for financial systems and data is taken every day at midnight and the system fails due to a major disaster on the following morning, then the recovery of data can happen from the point of time when the last data backup has been taken which is the previous night.
Thus when Recovery point objective is determined for each and every critical process, one can then determine which particular process or system requires a closer recovery point and suitable action can be initiated to increase the backup frequency.
The recovery point objective helps give clarity of recovery in terms of the fixed point up to which the recovery can be expected.
An effective DR & BC plan depends largely upon the quality of the Business Impact Analysis. The more time and attention given to analysis and planning helps get better results in terms of estimating all possible risks and prepare for risk mitigation and disaster recovery.
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