42% of disaster recovery strategies dead or dormant

UK businesses are still ill-prepared to deal with downtime and unexpected disruption to operations, says ControlCircle.

A recent survey of 100 CIOs/COOs/IT heads identified that whilst 90% had a strategy in place, only 46% had reviewed and tested their business continuity procedures in the last twelve months. 42% had either no strategy in place or were unsure when it was last tested. Over 50% of strategies were more than two years old.

In addition, more than 50% of those surveyed said it would take several hours for systems to be restored in the event of a disaster or fault. Over one third of those surveyed admitted it would take in excess of 24 hours to resume normal business operations.

“As shocking as these results are, they are consistent with our anecdotal conversations and insight into many organizations today”, said ControlCircle CEO Carmen Carey. “Most organizations see disaster recovery as a considerable expense to the business when in reality, it’s the cost of downtime that is immeasurable. Imagine how much damage you can do to your brand with three days of downtime?

Companies should be reviewing minutes versus hours as part of their strategy, especially now so much of today’s business is based online.”