Systems and methods for business continuity and business impact analysis

A system for providing business continuity in an organization, the system comprising:

• means for identifying risks that can cause a business disruption;
• means for developing a response plan for responding to the business disruption based on the identified risks;
• means for responding to the business disruption by executing the response plan;
• and
• means for maintaining the response plan during normal business operation, the means for maintaining the response plan comprising means for performing a business impact analysis using a quantifiable metric to identify time-critical business units in the organization.

A business impact analysis method for determining time-critical business units in an organization, the method comprising:

• estimating a set of time values for a business unit, the set of time values indicating points of time when a business impact of the business unit will increase;
• calculating a resilience impact rating of the business unit based on the estimated time values, wherein the resilience impact rating provides a metric for quantifying a time-criticality of the business unit;
• setting an impact threshold at a specific resilience impact rating value;
• and
• identifying the business unit as time-critical business unit if the resilience impact rating is greater than or equal to the impact threshold.

A business impact analysis system for determining time-critical business units in an organization, the system comprising:

• means for estimating a set of time values for a business unit, the set of time values indicating points of time when a business impact of the business unit will increase;
• means for calculating a resilience impact rating of the business unit based on the estimated time values, wherein the resilience impact rating provides a metric for quantifying a time-criticality of the business unit;
• means for setting an impact threshold at a specific resilience impact rating value;
• and
• means for identifying the business unit as time-critical business unit if the resilience impact rating is greater than or equal to the impact threshold.