A survey of 200 senior IT staff has uncovered an alarming lack of business continuity planning amongst UK enterprises both large and small. 21% of respondents said their firm does not have a business continuity plan in place, while a further 11% said they did not know whether the firm had one or not.
The survey was conducted in January 2007 by Computer Business Review (CBR) magazine in association with ëBusiness Continuity - The Risk Management Expo 2007í to be held at Excel in London from 28-29 March.
Amongst other shocking results, it found that of those companies that do have a business continuity plan in place, a staggering 39% of respondents said that their company tests their plan less than once per year.
ìItís common sense that a business continuity plan means little unless it has been demonstrated to work in practice,î commented Jason Stamper, Editor of Computer Business Review (CBR) magazine. ìYet despite the fact that the Business Continuity Institute sets out in its Best Practise Guidelines that a companyís plan should be trialled at least once every 12 months, only 61% of our survey respondents make that commitment. Amazingly, 13% of our respondents admitted that their firmís business continuity plan had never been trialled.î
Anna Campagnoli ñEvent Manager for Business Continuity Expo said ìAlthough the figures arenít surprising, the industry experts we work alongside have indicated that 2007 will definitely see a trend towards companies taking Business Continuity more seriously with more of an emphasis on regular testing with much of this being fuelled by the need to meet the increasing number of rules and regulations.î
A business continuity plan is designed to enable a company to continue operations in the event of a disaster, whether it be fire, flood, terrorist activity, the outbreak of a virus or some other disruptive event. It is designed to minimise or prevent disruption, offer clear guidance to staff on what to do and where to go in the event of a disaster, and get critical business operations up and running as soon as possible if they are disrupted.
It includes but is not limited to recovering technology assets such as data and networks after a disruption, and as a discipline it has been receiving more attention of late as a result of heightened awareness of possible threats as well as new regulatory requirements from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and others that put the onus on businesses to have business continuity plans in place.
Nevertheless this latest survey found that only 68% of respondents said their company has a business continuity plan in place. Of those, 10% admitted to not knowing who is responsible for implementing and overseeing their business continuity plan in the event of a disaster, despite the best practice advice of experts that suggests staff should be made aware of the plan and who is responsible for its implementation.
Other key findings include:
- Of those with a separate disaster recovery facility, only around half (51.6%) of respondents said that switching over to it had ever been trialled.
- In the event of a disaster, only 39% said they believed their business would be able to get up and running again within ìhoursî. 38% said it would take ìdaysî, 7% said it would take ìweeksî, 2% ìmonthsî and 1% said they believed their firm would ìneverî be able to resume operations. Just over 11% said they did not know how long it would take to resume operations.
Survey Uncovers Laissez-faire Approach to Business Continuity
Over 1 in 5 UK firms have no business continuity plan in place; 1 in 10 senior IT staff ìdonít knowî if a plan exists; 13% have never tested their plan
