Comprehensive survey into business continuity activities of UK organisations published
The study found that 49 percent of organisations surveyed have a business continuity plan covering their critical business activities. This is slightly down on last year’s figure of 51 percent but ‘continues to reflect the gradual rise of business continuity management, compared to 45 percent in 2002’. 77 percent of respondents stated that business continuity management is regarded as important or very important by senior management in their organisation, raising the question of why there is such a large gap between ‘understanding’ and ‘action’. Not surprisingly, the study found that business continuity management is considerably more widespread in large organisations. Just 40 percent of small organisations (under 50 employees) have business continuity plans, compared to 62 percent of organisations with over 1,000 employees. ‘Corporate governance’ was the most commonly identified driver of business continuity management. 56 percent of managers in public sector organisations and 52 percent in PLCs cite it as a key driver, compared to 29 percent of managers in private companies. Customer demand was the second most common driver. The most common events causing actual disruption to businesses in 2005 were identified as: loss of IT systems (38 percent reported this); loss of people (29 percent) and loss of telecommunications (24 percent). For the first time the survey looked at the threat of an influenza pandemic. 48 percent of respondents anticipated that this would result in ‘moderate levels of disruption’ for their organisation, and 42 percent thought it would create ‘high levels of disruption. However 43 percent have no pandemic contingency plans in place, again highlighting the understanding versus action gap which appears to be endemic in many UK organisations. Read the complete survey report
•Date: 17th May 2006• Region: UK • Type: Article •Topic: BC statistics |
