Cost and complexity continue to throw up barriers to the
adoption of effectivebusiness continuity measuresby many
mid-market firms, a survey has shown.
A Vanson Bourne survey of 200 UK companies with between 250 and
1,000 employees commissioned by security supplier Activity found
that only 15% were confident their plans would work and had fully
tested them.
Simon Robinson, research director at The 451 Group, said,
"Business continuity plans are implemented most effectively by
those organisations that can afford to do it. For the most part
this means large multinationals rather than mid-market firms."
However, he said the emergence of standards such as
BS 25999 was a step in the right direction, and a number of
technology suppliers were starting to focus on helping businesses
of this size solve their business continuity challenges.
The survey found that more than half of companies that had some
sort of business continuity plan in place had not tested their
plans fully, and 18% had not tested their plans at all.
Neil O'Connor, principal consultant at Activity, said businesses
of this size have a lot to cope with, and even though many are
aware of the need for business continuity planning, it never gets
to the top of the priority list.
He said other factors included a fear of failure, the belief
that continuity is an IT problem, and lack of confidence in the
process because there were so many different ways of doing it.
Bharat Thakrar, head of business continuity at BT Global
Services, said until now there had been no consistency in the way
business continuity planning is done.
"It is often disparate across organisations, and it is a
difficult job trying to pull it all together," he said.
"Companies need to understand that testing is about improving
the process and continuity is a business problem, not just the
responsibility of IT," said O'Connor.
The new BS 25999 business continuity standard should go a long
way to improving confidence in the business continuity planning
process, he said, because it provided a standard set of practices
to follow and should help eliminate past uncertainties.