Business continuity software survey results

Over the past couple of months Continuity Central conducted an online survey with the aim of discovering how and in what ways business continuity managers are using software to aid in plan writing, development and management. A total of 162 responses were received to the detailed survey, with respondents coming from the following industry sectors:

Banking / finance / financial services: 41.2%
Insurance: 11.9%
Retail: 7.5%
Manufacturing: 5.9%
Others: 33.5%

The United States was heavily represented, with 73 percent of respondents based in the US. 16% of respondents were from the UK with the remaining 11 percent based in a variety of other countries around the world.

The survey found that a majority of respondents (58.75%) used business continuity software. Of these:
* 60.62% used it to manage and update business continuity plans
* 37.11% used it to manage and co-ordinate crisis management response
* 25.95% used it to train personnel
* 31.41% used it to evaluate the adequacy of existing capabilities.

When broken down into more specific areas the survey found that respondents used software to help in the following aspects of business continuity planning and management:

Call lists : 75.4%
Business impact analysis : 59.4%
Testing and exercising : 54.7%
Crisis team development :47.2%
Crisis management : 41.5%
Risk assessment : 41.5%
Project management : 39.6%
Online access : 39.6%
Dependency modeling : 36.8%
Linking to standard databases (ORACLE, or SQL Server for example) : 32.1%
Training : 29.2%
Gap analysis : 27.4%
Automated crisis communications : 16.0%
Strategy selection : 9.4%

Looking forwards, respondents were asked what attributes would be important considerations when purchasing business continuity software in the future. The responses were:

* Ability to import/link existing information (people, resources, etc) into the software tool : 90.5%
* Customisable/tailored to reflect own organisational structure and standards : 84.1%
* Easy to use intuitive screens and a definable coaching module to take the user through the software : 84.1%
* Produce electronic plans in universal format, such as PDF : 82.5%
* Management and administration reporting capabilities : 76.1%
* Centralised database so that information is only entered by plan owners : 74.6%
* Auditable - full audit-trail available for review/reporting : 69.8%
* Ability to export/link data from planning tool to external databases/products : 68.2%
* Robust security module - delivers ability to restrict access to data (personal and business) by individual or group : 65.0%
* Web product for ease of access : 63.5%
* Dynamically builds enterprise relationships and dependencies as data is entered by plan owners : 58.7%

Somewhat surprisingly, only 53 percent of respondents reported that they had evaluated other software products before making their purchase.

3RD MARCH: VENDOR SPECIFIC INFORMATION HAS NOW BEEN REMOVED AS IT HAS BECOME OUT-OF-DATE

•Date: 29th October 2004 •Region: Worldwide •Type: Article •Topic: BC software
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UPDATED 3RD MARCH 2005