Some focus on assets, others focus on organizational units, and yet others look at specific parts of processes. The result can be a set of assessments with potentially inconsistent coverage and disconnected recommendations. So, an appealing alternative to counter that trend and bridge siloed assessments is to integrate risk assessments. A unified approach can bring together risk and business professionals to understand and manage the risks to critical processes. The idea is to create a common picture of gaps and then design coordinated action plans that can target improvements in resilience. Let’s focus on business continuity to see how an integrated risk approach can strengthen resilience.5 Business continuity programs have traditionally been designed to restore critical physical or technology infrastructures that can be disrupted by threats like extreme weather or loss of power. So, a business continuity plan might involve arranging for a backup data center if the primary data center goes down due to a hurricane. Within an organization, different business areas may develop their own plans that are focused on their specific business needs and priorities. An integrated business continuity plan is one that is designed to protect critical organizational processes and their essential assets from the full range of relevant threats. An integrated approach begins with organizational objectives. This bridges a gap between what good looks like to an individual business and what it looks like to the organization as a whole.
Chart 10: Chinese credit growth Percentage change on a year ago  45 40 35 30  Non-bank  25  Headline TSF  20  Bank  15 10  Nominal GDP  5 0  2013  2014  2015  2016  2017  2018  Sources: CEIC, Datastream from Refinitiv, The People's Bank of China and Bank calculations. A downturn in the Chinese economy would test the resilience elsewhere. China’s contribution to global growth has risen from one-fifth to one-third since the last US tightening cycle. 22  22 Reflecting the increased importance for China to the global economy, the scenario used in the FPC’s annual stress tests of the major UK banks includes a significant slowdown in the Chinese economy. 14  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  14  To give a sense of the issue, in the 21 credit booms that matched the scale of China’s since 1975, annual growth dropped by 3¼ percentage points on average in the subsequent years. Adjusting for progress thus far and China’s degree of development, this suggests growth could slow a further 1 to 1½ percentage points. Of course, deeper trade tensions would worsen the slowdown. The Bank of England estimates that a 3% drop in Chinese GDP would knock one per cent off global activity, including half a per cent off each of UK, US and euro area GDP, through trade, commodities and financial market channels.