Secrets to gathering great Business Impact Analysis (BIA) data for your credit union
We often times are asked, what’s the best way to gather Business Process data for ease of keeping the information current. Here are some simple steps to make the process easier for everyone involved.
- How does your organization define “severe impact”? Providing a clear understanding to the entire team ahead of time can save time and confusion later. This can be financial, reputation, etc. An overall understanding needs to be clear so recovery efforts can be focused effectively.
- From a technology perspective, start with putting together a complete list of systems that are used in your credit union.
- What business processes and functions does the credit union perform and provide. Each department should define for their areas. This can be likened to functions on a job description as an example. The big thing to focus on here is PROCESSES.
- What are business process? How detailed should I get?
- Here’s a great example. “Opening Accounts” – is that too vague or does it need to be broken down into smaller processes (like IRAs, HSAs, Checking Accounts, etc…)? There’s not a right or wrong answer to that question. The key is to get the processes and functions listed and defined. These can always be broken down or simplified later. There are always improvements or clarifications that can be made.
- Examples of systems instead of processes – Phones and Email. These are systems used for a specific business function.