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 Businesses across the US are responding more to the need for business continuity planning according to a AT&T’s latest annual Business Continuity Study, in which 83 percent of respondents stated that they have a business continuity plan in place. This was up 14 percent in the past five years.
For its ninth annual study, AT&T surveyed IT executives throughout the United States that have at least $10 million in annual revenue to get their views on disaster planning and business continuity trends; 87 percent of respondents have revenue in excess of $25 million. Sixty-one percent of the companies surveyed this year have locations outside of the US.
Key trends:
• Gulf Coast executives are most likely to indicate that their plans have been fully tested in the past year (61 percent compared to 54 percent, nationally). Given the susceptibility to and recent experiences in this area with hurricanes and flooding, it is not surprising that business continuity plans are tested annually.
• 63 percent include wireless network capabilities as part of their plan.
• 50 percent have virtualized their computing infrastructure, with almost four out of ten (38 percent) having implemented a business continuity plan for the virtualized infrastructure.
• Four out of ten (40 percent) require suppliers and other vendors to have a business continuity plan in place in order to do business with the company.
• Most IT executives are concerned about the increased usage of social networking capabilities and mobile networks/devices and their potential impact on security threats. Three out of four executives surveyed are very/somewhat concerned about the increased use of social networking capabilities (77 percent) and mobile networks/devices (76 percent).
• Seven out of ten (72 percent) executives indicate that their companies will be investing in new technologies for 2010. Investment tends to focus on virtualization (24 percent), cloud computing (21 percent) and mobile applications (20 percent).
"Reflecting back on previous years' studies, it's evident that businesses and organizations throughout the United States are focusing more and more on business continuity planning," said Chris Costello, assistant vice president, AT&T Hosting and Cloud Services, AT&T Business Solutions. "At the same time, companies are more attuned to how emerging and evolving technologies such as mobile applications and cloud computing fall into the planning equation."
For more information on the AT&T 2010 Business Continuity Study including the complete research results and comparisons to previous years, visit www.att.com/businesscontinuity-news
•Date: 26th May 2010 • Region: US •Type: Article •Topic: BC statistics
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