| The turning of the tide? The business continuity market is about to take-off… By David Honour, editor, Continuity Central The business continuity market can be hard to define. This makes it difficult to gain predictions for its growth potential. Probably the most accurate method is to look individually at the main areas covered by the business continuity umbrella and to use these jigsaw pieces to create an overall picture of market direction. As discussed in a previous Continuity Central opinion piece, business continuity has become much more about business protection and process availability than about disaster recovery, which is, however, still important as a last resort should all protection measures be overwhelmed by a crisis. As such, anything related to these areas is linked to the business continuity market. The following explores the main sectors which should come under the business continuity umbrella and looks at predictions for market growth. Business protection consulting IT continuity The next few years should see strong growth in the high availability and autonomous computing markets as competition increases, prices fall and the opportunities that such systems offer become more widely understood. The market for more conventional recovery-based systems is likely to stay strong amongst small and medium sized companies. This will remain the case whilst the cost of high availability systems is generally higher than recovery-based systems and unless such companies are operating in markets that demand zero downtime. Information security Operational risk Specific markets The public sector - in Western countries, especially in the US, the need for business continuity planning (or COOP -continuity of operations planning- as it tends to be termed) is well appreciated in the public sector. Budgets may not always follow this understanding, but again, in the US, finance is being made available and such planning is being encouraged. In the UK new legislation is in the pipeline that is expected to impose a duty on local authorities to show that they have business continuity plans in place. The Civil Contingencies Bill will be the vehicle for this legislation. If this goes through the UK public sector could become a much more lucrative market for business continuity companies. Data-holding industries - privacy and data protection have become civil liberties issues. As such, companies and organisations holding people’s personal data are facing legislation imposing requirements for how long data must be safely stored for. The information must be protected and available and therefore requires strong business continuity measures to ensure this. Listed companies – businesses listed on stock exchanges are facing new corporate governance challenges. New legislation driven by Enron and other high profile corporate governance failures is imposing data handling and protection requirements on listed companies, requiring that important corporate data and information is fully protected against loss or damage. Overall the future looks healthy for the business continuity sector. Companies serving the market have matured and consolidated over the past few years and should now be in a strong position to benefit. The growing market should also enable smaller companies to expand and new businesses to enter, providing healthy competition and ensuring that prices remain under control as demand increases. The tide that receded after the Y2K boom looks like it has well and truly turned. Have your say
•Date:
14th March 2003 •Region: Worldwide •Type:
Article •Topic: BC
general |
