The research commissioned by Global Switch concluded that banks are ahead of other industries in attitudes to aspects of business continuity. Some 93% of the banks surveyed said they allocated budget to prepare and maintain the physical environment in which their IT infrastructure is located, compared with only 68% of retailers.
Benefits do accrue from business continuity planning, including high availability of systems, good disaster-recovery procedures, and better backup systems. These all help mitigate against unplanned outages. In addition, Sarbanes-Oxley and other compliance regulations have increased the data- and record-retention requirements for many business sectors, although this is having an impact on business continuity assurances in some sectors more than others.
