CIOs understand the importance of disaster recovery while business executives do not.  Not only do business executives underestimate the importance of such disaster recovery planning, they also fail to understand how technology failures can affect their companies. 

In a new survey by Harris Interactive Inc., 71% of IT executives identified disaster recovery as very important or crucial to business success.  Only 49% of business executives felt that way.

IT leaders are more in tune with the importance of diaster recovery because the backup of data and systems has always been an IT responsibility. Business executives who fail to see the importance of disaster recovery and business continuity are failing to understand their customers’ needs.

Many business executives don’t know what’s under the hood in their company. They are unaware of how a technology failure can cause a train reaction that hurts the business.

Just 54% of business executives surveyed believed planning for uninterrupted information availability is necessary, versus 66% of IT executives. Only 63% of business executives thought the availability of networks, data, systems and applications is very important to business success, versus 86% of IT executives.

The survey also found that a lack of understanding of the actual cost and complexity of a business continuity plan by business leaders makes it difficult for IT executives to get the proper funding. The upshot: Business executives don’t think plans cost as much as they do.

Vice President of IT research at Computer Economics, Mark McManus had this to say:

“It’s an education process for upper management,” he said. “Present your case, bring in the experts, and talk about the potential risks they’re facing. It really comes down to making them understand that keeping technology available is crucial. If the technology is not there, the business cannot run. If they don’t do this, and they don’t get complete buy-in from business units, then they might not be able to recover after a disaster. It doesn’t happen that often, but if you look at [Hurricane] Katrina, there are a lot of companies that never came back from that.”

Are you protected should your company be exposed to a disaster?  Find out now!