CIO Executive Council survey explores disaster recovery planning in US companies

A new poll of 307 chief information officers (CIOs) conducted by IDG's CIO Executive Council has found that 22 percent of CIOs do not have a formal disaster recovery plan in place at their organization, and one in ten (9 percent) say their organization would last less than two weeks if local or regional technical infrastructure failed to recover quickly. Of those who do have disaster recovery plans, only 31 percent rate their plan as "extremely or very effective."

"The fact that one in ten organizations are not prepared to stay in business for a minimum of two weeks if local or regional technical recovery fail is alarming," says Mark Hall, general manager of the CIO Executive Council. "Even more alarming is the number of organizations who have no plans in place to address disaster recovery and business continuity. Organizations clearly need to make this a first priority, and be willing to fund business continuity planning at the appropriate levels."

The poll shows responsibility for disaster recovery planning falls largely to the CIO, with 37 percent having full responsibility for the information technology (IT) portion of the plan, 34 percent having responsibility that extends beyond the IT portion and 20 percent having responsibility for the entire plan.

In the wake of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma, the majority of respondents (73 percent) say they plan to recommend changes to their disaster recovery plans with only 19 percent saying no changes are necessary.

CIOs on disaster recovery plan vulnerabilities:
Several CIO respondents indicated that their disaster recovery plans are dependent on unpredictable factors. Forty-one percent (41 percent) do not have contingencies in the event that all local employees are unreachable and half (51 percent) do not have a process for tracking the location of evacuated employees. The majority (61 percent) do, however, have contingencies if all local employees cannot return to the area.

CIOs also cite dependencies on the nation's public infrastructure. Twenty-eight percent (28 percent) say their disaster recovery plan relies heavily on land line telephones for voice and data, followed by the electric grid (12 percent), wireless/cellular telephone systems (9 percent) and transportation infrastructure(5 percent). Twenty-two percent (22 percent) say their disaster recovery plan depends equally on all of the listed infrastructures, while at the other end of the spectrum, 17 percent say their disaster recovery plan works around all these potential failures.

CIOs on disaster recovery plan testing:
About half (49 percent) of CIO respondents update their organization's disaster recovery plan once each year with 32 percent updating on a more frequent basis and 12 percent less frequently. Most CIOs (61 percent) test the complete recovery of all IT elements of their disaster recovery plans at least once each year however almost one in five (18 percent) have never done a complete test of all IT elements.

CIOs on future disaster recovery efforts:
Not surprising, the majority of respondents (71 percent) believe improved disaster recovery planning and testing at individual organizations is what's needed to insure future disaster recovery efforts are better coordinated and successful. Fifty-six percent (56 percent) of CIOs say there is need for better advance coordination between public and private sectors regarding disaster recovery.

•Date: 8th Nov 2005 • Region: N.America • Type: Article •Topic: BC statistics
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