A survey of 200 senior IT staff has uncovered a 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 ‘Business Continuity – The Risk Management Expo 2007’ to be held at Excel in London from 28-29 March.
Amongst other 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.
“It’s common sense that a business continuity plan means little unless it has been demonstrated to work in practice,” comments Jason Stamper, Editor of Computer Business Review (CBR) magazine.
“Yet despite the fact that the Business Continuity Institute sets out in its Best Practise Guidelines that a company’s 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 firm’s business continuity plan had never been trialled,” he continues.
“Although the figures aren’t 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,” says Anna Campagnoli, Event Manager for Business Continuity Expo.