October 28, 2009
Businesses rely on IT systems to conduct their day to day business. Failure of these systems can be disastrous, so it is critical organisations have coherent and resilient business continuity strategies in place.
The terms ‘business continuity’ and ‘disaster recovery’ are interchangeable, but their goal is the same – to enable an organisation to carry on business-critical activities during a crisis caused by an unforeseen event: from terrorist attack or tsunamis; to fires, floods, power cuts, viruses and other malicious attacks.
Why do you need a business continuity function?
IT analysis firm Faulkner Information Services reported 50% of organisations losing data through crisis will go out of business within two years. The US Bureau of Labor puts the figure at 93% after five years.
When a computer system at the London Stock Exchange crashed at 8.44am one Monday, it prevented trading for nearly seven hours on the first trading day since the US Government announced a rescue package for US mortgage businesses Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
Despite such crises, Info-Tech Research Group still found that as many as 60% of businesses do not have strategies in place to rescue day-to-day operations should one occur.
Implementing a business continuity function
When implementing a business continuity function, organisations should consider the following:
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Tags: Business Continuity, data loss, disaster recovery, IT systems, Power Cuts
