Survey: Nearly 30% of businesses not ready for a disaster

According to AT&T’s annual business continuity and disaster recovery preparedness study, 72% of IT organizations have plans in place in case of a natural or manmade catastrophe.

While not a bad percentage, it also means that 26% have no plans at all and 2% “don’t know” if their company had a plan. The lack of plans may be linked to the fact that 75% say the companies surveyed have never suffered from a disaster.

“Some users still believe it will not happen to me,” says Jerry Shammas, executive director, business continuity and recovery services at AT&T. “There might be some sense of complacency developing … thinking they’re not prone to events like hurricanes, earthquakes, floods or tornados.”

But natural events are only one type of network and communications system threat. More worry about malicious network attacks and manmade disasters. Seventy-four of respondents say that viruses and worms are the biggest threat to business continuity. It is also the issue that 31% of IT executives say keep them up at night. Manmade disasters, such as terrorist attacks, were named by 12% as an issue that keeps them up at night. Natural disasters were named by 18% of respondents.

Though business continuity plans are not a priority for all, 57% that value business continuity have updated their plans in the last 12 months, but only 41% have tested their plans.

Of those that are planning to implement business continuity technologies or services, 16% say they will establish redundant servers and backup sites and educate employees in the next 12 months. Ten percent say they will outsource their continuity needs to a service provider.

AT&T surveyed users in Boston, New York, Atlanta, Cleveland, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Memphis/Nashville, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The findings stem from telephone interviews with 1,000 IT managers from Dun and Bradstreet’s list of companies that bring in more than $10 million in annual revenues. The carrier has conducted the survey for the past 10 years. It always includes 10 markets, some of which rotate annually, while other cities such as New York, Atlanta and Los Angeles are included yearly.