The Importance of Online Disaster Recovery

February 19th, 2007: According to a new survey in the UK, a third of medium-sized companies have no website disaster recovery plans, risking their online presence and underestimating the impact of downtime.

While business continuity is becoming more important, often this does not stretch beyond the office and into cyberspace. Commissioned by the UK’s NetBenefit and conducted by independent research company, Vanson Bourne, the researchers believe that companies that do not have a disaster recovery plan in place for their website are risking online revenue and even reputation.

With nearly three quarters (73 percent) of companies in this segment now doing business through their website, complacency on this front could cost millions of dollars in lost revenue should a critical portion of, or indeed the entire website go down.

Surveying UK IT Directors from mid-sized companies with 250 or more employees, Vanson Bourne also found that Of the two-thirds of companies that do have plans, only 38 percent test their plans more than once a year.

64 percent anticipated no or only 'slight' damage, to their business if their website were to go down for a whole day, something that the researchers felt was an underestimation of the effect of downtime.

“We know that the number of mid-market companies now using the Internet as a business channel continues to grow, but we have been very surprised by the lack of disaster recovery planning taking place,” says Jonathan Robinson, COO at NetBenefit. “Nearly every day we hear about viruses, hacking and other web attacks, let alone natural disasters such as fires or floods. Yet, while many companies go to great lengths to protect their physical assets with burglar alarms and other security devices, they do little or nothing to protect their vital, online business.

“Research shows that more than one in four customers are likely to move to a competitor if a website is down for any reason. For many mid-sized companies this would not only damage customer-loyalty but also mean significant lost revenue,” added Robinson.

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