Faster Disaster Recovery

CHAPTER 8Step 5: Identify and Evaluate Risks

The fifth step, risk management, is about reducing the effect of uncertainty on your objectives. That makes it an integral part of every organization’s business continuity plan (BCP).

Most businesses focus on the positive steps that they can take to achieve their goals, but often overlook the negative events that can make it more difficult (or even impossible) to achieve those goals.

A common mistake many companies make is seeing this as a one-and-done event. Unfortunately, the world is a risky place (and getting riskier all the time) with new threats developing every day . . . so looking at disasters and emergencies as isolated events is a dangerously myopic mind-set.

Businesses must be continually vigilant so they don’t get caught off guard by an unforeseen event. Thus, risk management should be an ongoing process, an integral part of the strategic planning process.

RISK ASSESSMENT PROCESS

Risk assessment is a process designed to identify and evaluate threats and hazards that could potentially harm a business. It involves considering the types of threats that exist, the assets at risk from the threats, and the potential negative impacts.

Companies that define the potential disasters and emergencies that they might encounter will have situation awareness at the most hazardous and critical of times. They will have focus and vision while their clueless competition flounders in chaos.

A company’s assets can take many shapes and forms, ...