Strategic Management: Business Impact Analysis (Definitions)

"The process of delineating the functions most critical to the survival of a business." (Yvette Ghormley, "Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plans", 2009)

"A management-level analysis which identifies the impacts of losing company resources. The BIA measures the effect of resource loss and escalating losses over time, in order to provide senior management with reliable data on which to base decisions concerning risk mitigation and continuity planning." (Mark S Merkow & Lakshmikanth Raghavan, "Secure and Resilient Software Development", 2010)

"A method or exercise to determine the impact of losing the support or availability of a resource." (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management" 8th Ed., 2011)

"Aims to (a) identify critical business processes, stakeholders, assets, resources and internal/external dependencies and (b) assesses and evaluates potential damages or losses at business level that may be caused by a threat to IT landscape." (Ulrich Winkler & Wasif Gilani, "Business Continuity Management of Business Driven IT Landscapes", 2012)

"A process used to analyze the business and identify critical functions and services. The BIA also helps the organization determine the cost impact of losing these functions and services. Organizations use the results as part of an overall business continuity plan." (Darril Gibson, "Effective Help Desk Specialist Skills", 2014)

"The identification of services and products that are critical to the organization." (Manish Agrawal, "Information Security and IT Risk Management", 2014)

"The process of analysing activities and the effect that a business disruption might have upon them." (David Sutton, "Information Risk Management: A practitioner’s guide", 2014)

"An exercise that determines the impact of losing the support of any resource to an organization, establishes the escalation of that loss over time, identifies the minimum resources needed to recover, and prioritizes the recovery of processes and supporting systems." (Adam Gordon, "Official (ISC)2 Guide to the CISSP CBK" 4th Ed., 2015)

"A functional analysis in which a team collects data, documents business functions, develops a hierarchy of business functions, and applies a classification scheme to indicate each individual function’s criticality level." (Shon Harris & Fernando Maymi, "CISSP All-in-One Exam Guide" 8th Ed., 2018)

"The analysis of an information system’s requirements, functions, and interdependencies used to characterize system contingency requirements and priorities in the event of a significant disruption." (William Stallings, "Effective Cybersecurity: A Guide to Using Best Practices and Standards", 2018)

"A business continuity management activity which is mainly intended for defining the core business functions, the recovery priorities regarding these functions and the corresponding time required for the resumption of each function." (Athanasios Podaras et al, "Regression-Based Recovery Time Predictions in Business Continuity Management: A Public College Case Study", 2021)

"Activity that identifies the VMF and their dependencies" (ITIL)

"An analysis of an information system’s requirements, functions, and interdependencies used to characterize system contingency requirements and priorities in the event of a significant disruption." (CNSSI 4009-2015)