In a recent report, commissioned by M247’s partner Zerto, the International Data Corporation (IDC) looked at the current state of IT resilience, difficulties experienced by businesses and the potential future of this solution in today’s digital business world. The below findings are the results from a 2019 survey of 500 senior IT decision makers across 10 different industries.
The IDC believes many organisations see disaster recovery and IT resilience as an insurance policy, with little or no return. But when one of the key predictions for 2020 is around the topic of cyber security is this an adequate approach for today’s digital business?
Following the survey, the IDC believes IT resilience can be categorised in three distinct areas; offering the ability to protect data during planned disruptive events; being able to effectively react to unplanned events and to accelerate data-oriented business initiatives.
The current state of IT resilience
Respondents were asked to rank key challenges for their business, providing the following results:
- 45% indicated challenges to restore reliability
- 44% indicted challenges with back-up reliability
- 43% of businesses said disaster recovery complexity is a challenge
Over 90% of organisations in question have experienced tech related or business disruption in the last 2 years, with some experiencing both.
84% of organisations in question have also experienced a malicious attack in the last 12 months, with 93% resulting in data loss. The below chart details the top reasons for data loss:
Worryingly many of the unrecoverable data events were due to avoidable reasons. The IDC suggest if a business is not able to eliminate avoidable reasons then their disaster recovery set-up is not fit for purpose.
On analysing the results, IDC suggest that as many as 50% of organisations would not survive a disaster event, and given the average cost of downtime is cited at around $250,000 per hour, the potential financial impact would be huge, reaching into the millions per hour depending on the business/industry.
This approach to disaster recovery and prevention is even more alarming when you consider the direct impact failing to react, manage and resolve disruptions has had historically. Over the past 50 years the lifespan of S&P 500 companies has dropped from 60 years to 18 years.
What does the future hold?
The good news is that many of the organisations surveyed already have plans to improve the state of their IT Resilience over the next two years. On average expenditure on IT resilience solutions is forecast to rise from the average 12.4% over the next two years. This is not all that is expected to change –
Of those organisations questioned who are currently undergoing digital transformation projects 82% believe data protection is important towards the success of these projects.
The above results show a dramatic shift towards the introduction or improvement of IT resilience solutions in the coming 2 years, and in light of 2020 predications and the fact that just days into the new decade the first high profile hacking scandal was publicised, its not a moment too soon.
How can you improve your IT Resilience?
There is no one size fits all approach to disaster recovery, businesses must review their data and industry requirements. You can use our downtime calculator, powered by Zerto, to see the impact a major disruption would
have on your business.
You can ensure your business can continue to operate should the worst happen, by putting steps in place to mitigate against the risk of a disaster. M247’s DRaaS solutions can be as flexible as you need, we know that businesses have different needs and resource. Let us help you choose the right service or solution to protect your business, speak to a member of our team today!
* – Information taken from the white paper ‘The State of IT Resilience’ from the IDC, sponsored by Zerto.
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