4.3 Prioritising Business Functions

MSTA software is available to assist in the tasks of prioritising business processes and analysing the resources required to carry out each process.

The business continuity planner should start by listing all of the 'high level' business processes in each business unit. Prioritise the processes in terms of the number of hours or days for which the business unit manager, or key staff, say that the process may be interrupted without incurring penalty or losing significant profit, or market share, or goodwill.

The following prioritisation codes are those used currently by MSTA:

'v' - vital: The task or resource must be available on the first day that a disaster occurs.

'c' - critical: The task or resource must be available on the second or third day after the disaster, within, say, 30 hours.

'i' - important: The task or resource must be available within 7 days.

'd' - deferrable: Deferrable tasks and resources can be re-started at a convenient time, beyond 7 days.

All business processes in each business unit should be marked with a priority code letter, as above. The prioritisation should then be checked with senior managers and other units, to arrive at the correct prioritisation in relation to the overall operation of the business group. This is an iterative process and some previous experience or training in this task is helpful in arriving at the correct prioritisation for a particular situation.