A survey by DHL Express has found that most New Zealand businesses say maintaining business continuity in the event of a business interruption or emergency is essential. However, the majority do not have plans that have been tested and/or communicated to staff.

The DHL Business Continuity survey found that while 92 percent of companies surveyed agree that business continuity is important, 41 percent of businesses do not have a plan in place.

“The survey reveals that there is a gap between the perception of how important it is to protect business operations during a major interruption, and the actual reality of putting a plan in place,” said Derek Anderson, General Manager, DHL Express – New Zealand.

“This comes as a surprise given the number of recent scares, both on a local and global level, such as bird flu, tsunamis in Indonesia, and the recent spate of bad weather in New Zealand resulting in the Auckland power outage in June. These are compelling reasons for putting a robust plan in place,” he added.

The results show that smaller companies are less prepared for a crisis. Of the companies that do not have business continuity plans, the majority (92 percent) are either small (between one and five employees) or medium (6-99 employees) sized. Companies with more than 100 employees are less likely (8 per cent) to be unprepared for a crisis.

For the 41 percent of businesses that do not have business continuity plans, nearly a quarter (21 percent) do not intend to create one. Another 37 percent say that there are plans to do so, but they have no timeframe for action. On the other hand, 42 percent intend to put a plan in place within the next year.

For those that do not have a plan, almost half (48 percent) cite workload issues as the main hindrance. A quarter (24 percent) say they are not sure where to start, and 20 percent say that it is simply not a priority for the business.

Of the businesses that are have put in the groundwork and prepared a plan (59 percent), nearly a third (33 percent) say they have not communicated and/or tested their plans with staff.

62 percent of those surveyed have experienced downtime of at least two to three days in the last year, and 26 per cent say they have experienced major downtime in the last quarter.

The Auckland power outage in June was the cause of downtime for 57 percent of respondents, while technical failure was the second most common cause of downtime (35 percent) in the last quarter. The biggest concern for businesses about the loss of productive time is the inconvenience to customers (39 percent), followed by the financial cost (23 percent).

•Date: 2nd August 2006• Region: New Zealand •Type: Article •Topic: BC statistics
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