Wednesday, July 9, 2008

ERM-BC-COOP: AT&T's 2008 preparedness survey

It's been out for awhile, but not everyone knows about it, so . . .

AT&T for the past 7 years produced a "Business Continuity Study."

It's a flawed study because the AT&T researchers queried only InfoTech executives. AT&T should correctly title the study an "IT preparedness study" rather than suggesting anyone from a business unit provided input.

For all that, the biased report is both interesting and encouraging. It is on the WWW at

http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=7922

Because AT&T markets "business continuity" planning, the graphic headline above the study reads "We've found that one in five U.S. businesses does not have a plan to handle man-made and natural disasters."

Put a positive spin on this and you have "Four out of five U.S. businesses have a plan to handle man-made and natural disasters."

That has to be encouraging.

As to be expected, when you ask InfoTech folks about threats, the answer will be focused on InfoTech - that's a logical conclusion supported by the AT&T study.


Two-thirds of IT executives predict that hacking will be the biggest threat in the next five years. The next most frequently mentioned threats are internal:

    Accidents — 56 percent
    Sabotage — 47 percent
    Remote workers — 44 percent


The AT&T survey was developed in 12 market areas, alphabetically: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Memphis/Nashville, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York, San Francisco, and Toronto.

While I would very much like to see a survey of business leaders, the AT&T effort is worth a look.

It is interesting to see how U.S. organizations compare to those in Toronto and London (UK).

John Glenn, MBCI, SRP
Enterprise Risk Management/Business Continuity
http://johnglennmbci.com/
Planner @ JohnGlennMBCI.com

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