Most firms risking operations and business data – survey


3 Feb 2012

Fergal Hennigan, business development manager with MJ Flood Technology

More than half (51pc) of organisations are putting their operations and business data at financial risk by not having an IT disaster recovery plan, research by IT services provider MJ Flood Technology suggests.

According to the report into data management practices, 48pc of organisations also admit to having no business continuity plan.

An independent report released by CA technologies reveals that European organisations are collectively losing more than €17bn in revenue each year from the time taken to recover from IT downtime.

This lack of disaster recovery planning is consistent with surveys carried out by MJ Flood Technology in 2007 and 2009, indicating an ongoing failure by organisations to protect mission-critical business data from unforeseen events.

The number of companies encountering data-recovery problems has also soared, up from 27pc in 2007 to 41pc in 2011.

Some 44pc of companies experienced downtime or system outages which exceeded their stated tolerance levels. More than one-third of respondents (35pc) said their business can withstand a critical IT system outage for one working day or more.

“An unacceptably high proportion of companies are failing to make adequate provision for data protection and recovery,” said Fergal Hennigan, business development manager with MJ Flood Technology.

“This is supported by the fact that 62pc have no budget spend allocated to disaster recovery. While we are encouraged that almost all organisations are performing daily backups, we believe that directors have a corporate responsibility to ensure that comprehensive risk mitigation is addressed as a matter of urgency.”

When questioned on the lack of disaster recovery planning, 38pc of respondents said disaster recovery plans were currently being drawn up. Fifteen per cent of respondents cited a lack of internal expertise, up from 4pc in 2009, and an equal number cited cost as a prohibiting factor, up from 12pc in 2009.