Skip to main content

Many Unprepared for BT Disaster Recovery

Disaster strikes. Your primary place of business is destroyed by a fire tomorrow, are you prepared to recover? According to the historical statistics, fires permanently close 44 percent of the businesses that are affected.

Business continuity planning is the creation and validation of a practiced logistical plan for how an organization will restore interrupted critical functions within a predetermined time after a disaster or extended disruption.

Business Technology survivability is an imperative for many organizations that operate in the global networked economy, yet some are unprepared for a natural disaster. Cisco recently shared the results of an insightful nationwide survey.

Informed, but Otherwise Unprepared
The market study uncovered that while many organizations appreciate the increased employee productivity and other benefits offered by laptop computers, smart phones and virtual private networks, they may be unprepared to enable the majority of their employees to effectively telecommute.

Without the proper networking infrastructures to support remote work by a high percentage of their employees, these organizations will be unable to maintain their operations should their team be blocked from coming into the office for an indefinite period.

The telework preparedness survey, conducted by InsightExpress for Cisco, interviewed 502 information technology decision makers from U.S. businesses of all sizes. The survey questioned IT professionals in the health care, retail, finance, government and education sectors.

Highlights from the study include:
  • 53 percent of the of the IT executives surveyed said that less than half their employees were currently enabled to work remotely; 21 percent said that they have no employees enabled to work remotely.
  • Asked why more employees didn't have access to technology that would enable them to work outside the office, 38 percent said that business requirements did not necessitate it.
  • Only 22 percent of the respondents believe that their current remote-access solutions have positioned their companies for disaster preparedness and business continuity.
  • Just 15 percent of the respondents listed 'pandemic or other disaster preparedness' as a top business driver for providing remote access to employees, and only 5 percent listed it as the primary business driver.
Service Providers Offering Guidance
The results indicate that the majority of companies are not considering the importance of remote-access solutions for potential business interruptions -- focusing more on business technology needs under normal conditions.

In most cases, the cost to implement secure remote access across an entire workforce is a fraction of what the loss of business would be if employees could not work remotely during a crisis. Contact a managed service provider to learn more about the best-fit solution for your particular business needs.

Popular posts from this blog

Why 97% of Companies Fail at AI Transformation

Many CEOs say their company is all-in on AI. Every one of their earnings calls touts AI integration. Their strategy deck features the words AI-powered a dozen times. Yet when I review these same organizations, I encounter a starkly different reality: employees using consumer  Generative AI (GenAI) tools in secret, departments building redundant solutions, and confusion about what AI transformation actually means. Recent research from Google also reveals the inconvenient truth: Just 3 percent of organizations have achieved meaningful AI transformation. However, 97 percent remain mired in what I call AI aspiration fantasy theater. This isn't a technology problem. The GenAI tools work. The models are remarkable. The issue is that we've fundamentally misunderstood what meaningful and substantive AI transformation requires. The Executive Blind Spot The data reveals a troubling pattern: executives are 15 percentage points more likely than their employees to believe that AI is alread...