The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) has published the results of its 2007 Business Continuity Management Survey, which was supported by the Cabinet Office and Continuity Forum. The survey was first conducted in 1999 and has been carried out annually since; providing an interesting ongoing snapshot of how business continuity practices have developed and changed over time.

The top-level findings of this year’s survey were as follows:

• 73 percent of managers report that business continuity management is important in their organisation, and 94 percent of those who had invoked their plans agreed that they had reduced disruption.

• Despite the perceived importance and range of disruptions reported, over half of the 1257 managers surveyed work in organisations where there is no specific business continuity plan in place.

• Around one in three organisations reported experiencing disruptions due to loss of IT (39 percent) and loss of people (32 percent) over the past year; and those affected by extreme weather conditions had risen over the past year from 9 to 28 percent.

• 55 percent of respondents’ organisations have plans for a possible influenza pandemic. These plans incorporate higher levels of staff absenteeism than in 2006, but organisations remain unclear about the likely duration of such absences and many are not considering the impact of additional parent-worker absences.

• Only half of organisations with business continuity plans carry out regular and thorough rehearsals, despite strong evidence that rehearsals are vital to ensure the effectiveness of planning. 80 percent of those who had rehearsed their plans reported shortcomings that needed to be addressed.

Read the full survey report.

•Date: 20th March 2007 • Region: UK •Type: Article •Topic: BC statistics
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