Business continuity will be high priority in 2007 budgets: survey 25 March, 2007 By Patricia Pickett

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More than 80 per cent of the medium- and large-business IT decision makers who responded to the survey, conducted by conducted by GCR Custom Research, said they expect to see increased spending in those areas. Nine out of 10 reported plans for higher spending specifically on disaster-tolerant solutions, backup and recovery efforts, security and improved IT service management offerings.

According to John Bennett, Palo Alto, Calif.-based HP's worldwide director for business continuity and availability solutions, the focus is not just on disaster planning, but also covers pandemic planning. Companies are increasingly concerned about how they can stay in business if their employees or suppliers get sick or are otherwise impacted by pandemics and are unable to get into the office, he said.

The number-one driver respondents cited for increased spending was data protection. Two out of five identified it as the highest and most important issue for them. "Information is the lifeblood of the business and if anything happens to that, whether supply-chain or customer-related, it could drive you out of business very quickly," said Bennett.

Respondents also mentioned changes in the business and competitive pressure as drivers, including the desire to differentiate themselves by being able to maintain operations even in the event of major incidents, he added.

Routine issues that affect continuity and availability continue to be core areas of focus as well. For example, 73 per cent of mid-market respondents said they plan to increase spending on security in this coming year compared to last year; more than half of them plan to spend more on data protection and recovery; and half of them said they will fork out more cash for disaster tolerance and high availability solutions.

Bennett said the results were surprisingly consistent across many of the countries in which the survey was conducted. However, the lack of business continuity plans among companies still stands out: nearly one-third of medium businesses said they don't have one, which is bad news, Bennett said.

"More and more mid-market companies are dealing with businesses that are not local," he "Staying in business is critical and there are far too many competitors out there. If they ever experience a disaster, it's like putting a 'closed for business' sign on the front door." With a business continuity plan, at least companies can instead put up a "back by 10 a.m." sign, he said.

Some of the traditional barriers to establishing a plan have included securing financial support and building a business case for business continuity. "If it's not something you've purchased before, it's sometimes not even that clear where to turn to in these types of matters," Bennett explained.

Sometimes it's just a matter of business continuity being a low corporate priority. Management "may not see why they should put business continuity plans in place, and become extremely interested in it once they have had an incident themselves or when it has happened to their competitors or other businesses in their area. But if things have been going well for a while, it's easy to let it slide," he said. The sense of not having enough time to implement a business continuity project has also loomed over mid-sized firms.

While the results of the survey mark a shift in strategy for companies toward a more proactive approach toward business continuity, there are some best practices companies need to keep in mind to maximize the effectiveness of their plans.

The first one is to keep the plan up-to-date. "No matter what size the business is, your plans are always under way and never done," said Bennett. Businesses are constantly changing: they are adding IT services, new applications and growing, which all changes availability. "It is critical from an operational perspective to invest in thorough IT governance measures to make sure there is a focus on managing and improving availability." Timelines need to be set not for implementation plans but for governance and a focus on continuous improvement.

The survey suggested companies are interested in finding a single vendor, or maybe two, that can help them with their needs, Bennett noted. "Given the worry around disaster recovery, security and all these other issues, a multiplicity of vendors can make things difficult especially for small accounts." Virtualization may also help decrease both planned and unplanned downtime, he added.