What’s the Importance of Business Continuity?

CU360
October 20, 2009 | COMMENTS

There's a significant disconnect between information technology (IT) and business executives when it comes to disaster recovery preparedness. While both sets of executives share the same views on the importance of information availability to the business, a recent survey shows a split in how to achieve the goal of minimizing downtime when an unplanned IT outage occurs.

Both IT and business decision-makers say information availability is important to the success of their business (83% of IT executives, 78% of business executives), according to a survey commissioned by SunGard Availability Services and conducted by Harris Interactive. Fewer than half of business executives, however, say disaster recovery and business continuity are important to business success compared with a large majority of IT executives (49% of business, 74% of IT).

“The survey shows IT and business decision-makers really want the same things—to avoid lost productivity and negative impact on customer satisfaction that can result from unplanned outages,” said Patrick Doherty, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at SunGard Availability Services. “But there's a meaningful gap between these groups on how to achieve that goal. It's largely because the business is not connecting the requirement to keep core IT systems and applications available with overall company success.”

Disconnect Over Funding

The lack of business understanding about the value of disaster recovery is clearly exhibited in executive views on funding levels. IT decision-makers were significantly more likely to say insufficient funding is among the biggest obstacles they face in developing an effective disaster recovery plan for their companies (42% of IT to 32% of business).

IT executives were also more likely to say they have inadequate resources (25% of IT to 11% of business) to make disaster recovery plans effective. And IT executives are more likely to say investing in disaster recovery and business continuity are more important in the current economy because they can't afford any unexpected downtime (33% of IT, 18% of business).

The gap in support for funding disaster preparedness may be the result of business decision-makers being less knowledgeable about their company's disaster recovery plans. For example, business executives were significantly more likely to say they're not sure how often they test their disaster recovery plans (30% of business, 5% of IT) or what their plan includes (41% of business, 4% of IT).

“An essential step in any effective disaster recovery/business continuity plan is involving the business functions in plan development, testing, and execution. Disasters can affect operational and financial performance, regulatory compliance, and relations with customers and partners. Information availability should be viewed as preventive care,” Doherty said.

Contributing to the stress on IT operations is the pressure to keep unplanned IT downtime at low levels. Two-thirds of IT executives say the amount of downtime tolerated has grown shorter over the last two years. And 54% of IT decision-makers report their organizations can tolerate downtime of only five hours or less. When asked to give their company a letter grade on their company‘s ability to access business-critical information after an unplanned outage, 30% of IT executives chose a “C” or “D”—which compares to only 22% selecting those grades in the survey done in 2007.

“The demands to reduce downtime in an environment where there aren't enough resources are driving IT executives to grade themselves tougher than two years ago. The reality is IT lives in a pass/fail world when it comes to disaster preparedness. This makes it imperative for IT and business to share responsibility in helping ensure systems, information, and people stay connected,” Doherty said.