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UK business 'not up to speed' on business continuity
Businesses in the UK may agree with the concept of risk management and business continuity, but recent studies have indicated that in practice, many companies are woefully unprotected.
Research from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and the Cabinet Office highlighted how little threats such as terrorist acts, extreme weather and power outages have been translated into business policy. Just 47 per cent of UK firms have a business continuity plan in place, only two per cent more than back in 2002.
The fact that half of the nation's organisations do not have a formal plan in place to rely on should operations be disrupted in some way is despite the fact that management tends to support such contingency measures. According to the report, 76 per cent of managers consider business continuity to be 'important' or 'very important'.
Public sector organisations were found by the study to be the best protected, with 62 per cent in possession of a business continuity plan. In contrast, just 40 per cent of the private and voluntary sector had a plan in place, and 55 per cent of listed firms.
It seems that big businesses are as guilty as smaller companies of failing to translate sentiment into action when it comes to mitigating against unexpected obstructions to operations. Research by IDC and commissioned by BT Global Services found that 21 per cent of large companies in the UK do not have complete business continuity plans. This is despite the fact that accountability for such measures goes right to the top. The survey revealed that responsibility for business continuity planning lies with the chief executive for 27 per cent of firms and for 63 per cent with the chief information officer or IT director.
The figures might be concerning, but there are signs that UK organisations are beginning to take disaster recovery and business continuity planning more seriously. According to the IDC report, 37 per cent of businesses are planning to increase their investment in business continuity over the course of 2008.
But investment and planning should be followed up with implementation. Some 33 per cent of organisations who have such a plan in place do not run tests on it, the CMI study found, and just 39 per cent plan for a loss of IT capabilities, despite 73 per cent recognising the 'significant' impact this can have. "Some hard questions need to be asked about why the mismatch between planning and protection is allowed to exist," said Jo Causon, director of marketing and corporate affairs at the CMI. "It doesn't matter whether the turbulent times we face are caused by economic or security concerns; the simple fact is that failing to provide safeguards for business operations does not make sense."
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