Free template
Business Impact Analysis (BIA) Template
A business impact analysis (BIA) identifies your critical processes and quantifies how badly disruption hurts over time. The output drives everything downstream: recovery objectives, criticality tiers and where you invest first.
The template uses a consistent scoring matrix so results are comparable across processes — the same shape Resilira uses to auto-derive RTO, RPO and MTPD.
What's inside
Process name, owner, department and the assets/vendors it depends on.
Score financial, operational, legal/regulatory and reputational impact.
Rate impact at 1 hour, 4 hours, 24 hours, 72 hours and 1 week — disruption hurts more the longer it lasts.
A 0–5 scale per cell (none → catastrophic) for a defensible, consistent matrix.
RTO, RPO and MTPD computed from the matrix, plus a 0–100 criticality score and tier.
Upstream/downstream dependencies and the assumptions behind your scores.
Generate it automatically with Resilira
- Score each process on a fixed 4×5 matrix and Resilira derives RTO, RPO, MTPD and a criticality tier live — no spreadsheet formulas to maintain.
- Click 'Suggest with AI' to get a starting matrix (with a rationale) from the process name, description and department, then adjust every cell before saving.
- Objectives are written back onto the process and feed your plans and compliance score automatically.
Best-practice tips
- Score worst-case impact, and keep the scale anchored with written definitions so scores stay consistent across reviewers.
- Don't let everything be 'critical' — the point of a BIA is to rank, not to flatten.
- Capture dependencies; a process is only as recoverable as the asset or vendor it relies on.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a business impact analysis?
- A BIA identifies critical business processes and quantifies the operational, financial, legal and reputational impact of disrupting them over time. It's the basis for setting recovery objectives (RTO, RPO, MTPD) and prioritising continuity investment.
- How do you calculate RTO and RPO from a BIA?
- RTO is set just before impact becomes severe on the time axis; MTPD is the first horizon where worst-case impact is severe; RPO reflects how fast impact climbs and is never larger than the RTO. Resilira computes all three from the matrix automatically.
Related templates
Get audit-ready before your next due-diligence questionnaire.
Start free — no credit card. 14-day trial with a sample workspace preloaded.