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Why Business Continuity Plans Often Fail

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In 2011, IBM reported that only 6 percent of companies incurring a "major loss of business data" would be long-term survivors, while 43 percent would never reopen and 51 percent would close their doors within 24 months. Many of these companies no doubt felt that they had a viable disaster recovery plan, but they failed to realized that disaster recovery is only part of an effective business continuity plan. A disaster recovery plan is simply the process of ensuring that data can be recovered in the event that system data is lost through physical destruction or an issue with software such as a virus. A business continuity plan encompasses the preservation and recovery of data, but it also includes planning for the absence of a key staffer, disruptions in your supply chain or other issues that your business might face. Why Business Continuity Plans Often Fail The primary purpose of a business continuity plan is to reduce your risk that your company will not be able to function if a given scenario should occur. However, many …show more content…

This means that both your production and backup networks may encounter bandwidth limitations, lost or delayed packets, jitter or a host of other problems that can severely affect how your business applications will perform. If your business continuity plan does not include a sufficient understanding of how your applications will perform under adverse conditions, your business could still be at risk even if you believe that you have addressed all possible contingencies. Some organizations mistakenly believe that they are immune because they have moved critical business applications to the cloud. However, the cloud still relies on the same imperfect network, and you have the additional complication of a third-party vendor. If the vendor's site is not performing as it should, the performance of your application can also be affected. Remember the Physical

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