Survey finds firms have few plans to cope with disaster

New Zealand News - Technology - Survey finds firms have few plans to cope with disaster:

16.03.2004
By RICHARD PAMATATAU

New Zealand organisations have become complacent since Y2K and are ignoring business continuity and disaster recovery, according to a survey by consultancy KPMG.

Fewer than 35 per cent of the businesses surveyed in a KPMG Asia-Pacific business continuity management benchmarking survey have organisation-wide business continuity plans in place and almost one-third have no plan at all.

The result has shocked Rupert Dodds, KPMG Wellington director of information risk management. He said the report surveyed 200 organisations in the Asia-Pacific region, including 18 in New Zealand.

Doss was unable to say how much the lack of planning might cost New Zealand if disaster struck.

Many organisations thought that the work done for Y2K was enough but four years on information systems and staff had changed, he said.

In some cases staff did not know where or how business continuity plans were to be implemented.

Business continuity management identifies, assesses and manages events that may have a significant impact on an organisation's business operations.

Doss said the report showed that organisations were not doing structured risk assessments and might be speculating about the threats they were spending money on - and possibly leaving themselves exposed to the things that would hurt them."