| Gartner just released an eye-popping statistic: Only about one-third of the 359 corporations it surveyed are prepared for business outages lasting more than a week.
With the threat of disasters such as fires, hurricanes, terrorist attacks and pandemics hanging over businesses around the world, it just seems incredible that organizations haven’t taken better precautions.
Why haven't they? Is it a question of not having enough people? Or enough money? Or is it that people don't fully appreciate the threat?
"All three: lack of people, lack of money and lack of understanding of the risks to their business if they suffer an outage," said Gartner research vice president Robeta Witty in an e-mail response to my question.
"Most organizations don't have a dedicated person in charge of business continuity management and disaster recovery. Therefore, the focus and culture is not established throughout the business. If enterprises viewed interruptions in the business process from a risk management perspective, then they would become proactive and take the needed steps to design and build new products, services and technologies that are more resilient and less prone to downtime," she continued.
However, when it comes to spending money on business continuity and disaster recovery, many companies just look at the odds, she says, and if something hasn’t happened in the past, the bet is that nothing will happen in the future.
But, of course, that's not always a safe bet.
And even when companies do look at spending some money to protect themselves, they often only look at how much it would cost to protect the business, not how much it costs for the business to be off line for awhile. And the price of lost revenue, a damaged reputation and a battered brand, as well as penalties incurred from a breach of contract or regulation, can add up, Witty said.
Another thought: Witty said companies shouldn't look at protection as just a cost. "In becoming more resilient, you become more agile and can take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves. So it’s not just about recovery, it’s about getting new business and keeping it," she said.
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