Large Financial Institution Automates their BIA

Performing a business impact analysis (BIA) is a daunting task for many organizations, but for one of our clients, a large financial institution, the challenge is huge – literally. With 1200 functions and over 500 people involved, the scale of their effort requires unique solutions to effectively leverage the limited resources allocated to the corporate contingency planning team. Federal banking regulations further complicate their work, requiring detailed evidence of review, versioning, approval and security. In the past, Strohl System's BIA Professional software was used to survey each function with over 50 questions. BIA Professional required significant customization by the IT organization to capture the data needed, so the first few months of the BIA were devoted to building the survey correctly. Once completed by the initial responder, an approver for each function reviewed the results and approved the analysis. The data was then exported to spreadsheets, summarized and emailed to division CFO's for final approval. Each stage required significant effort to capture the right data, obtain formal approvals and document the process.

For the business impact analysis this year, this institution began using the BIA module of Avalution's The Planning Portal software to capture the required information. The Planning Portal provided an improved user interface for end users and administrators. In addition, the built in work flow automated the process of tracking which BIAs were in process, completed and approved. As a result, their BIA has never been more successful.

One senior manager commented, "This year's BIA was a tremendous step forward on a number of levels. The Planning Portal gave us the flexibility and ease of use we always wanted. Our timeline to develop the questions, execute the survey and validation processes, and produce the BIA results was shortened by over two months. The efficiency gains in the process, along with the cost and time savings in the BIA development effort, resulted in us doing much more with less and that is a huge win for the contingency planning team and the company as a whole."

Are you ready to drive efficiency into your organization's business continuity program? Contact us to request your demo of The Planning Portal today!