Financial Times and Symantec publish business continuity survey results "Banking and financial security firms are under particular pressure when it comes to understanding business continuity, as well as related regulatory compliance requirements," said Will Speck, director of research for Financial Times. "This comprehensive survey captures the increased pressure to mitigate risk and reduce the amount, and cost, of risk capital dedicated to business continuity issues." "There is a prevailing misconception that business continuity is just about the data," said Joe Giesken, principal of Symantec's Business Continuity Management Practice. "The survey results underscore the need to view planning in a holistic manner, to fully assess and evaluate the people, processes and procedures that impact an organizations ability to operate in the face of planned or unplanned downtime. While heightened awareness is an important first step, it is clear that managing to regulatory compliance is not enough. A complete business continuity plan must include rigorous internal and inter-dependant testing, along with external, industry-wide preparedness testing to ensure the continuity of essential business assets." The survey, which targeted key executives in the banking, financial services and telecommunications industries, asked more than three dozen questions about past, current and future practices and plans for business continuity. One-on-one interviews with select, senior-level CIO/CTO executives in the banking and financial services fields provided deeper insight into trends. Among the key findings are: * Business continuity compliance requirements and recent events in the financial services sector are raising the level of attention paid to the cost and efficacy of business continuity programs. * Business unit leaders are becoming more engaged in business continuity management and disaster recovery, resulting in a blurring of the division between business units and IT, as individual teams see the value of working together on inter-related issues. * Most companies report a much more significant focus on maintaining central data stores (disaster recovery), with comparably less attention paid to maintaining or restoring disrupted operations (business continuity). * Executives responsible for business continuity reported significant gaps in overall preparedness, particularly as it relates to testing. * Financial assessment is also under-attended, highlighting the need to develop systems that consider the total cost of ownership (TCO) of various business continuity options.
•Date: 15th September 2005 • Region: UK/World • Type:
Article •Topic: BC statistics |
