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Study reveals changing causes of business disruption over last 10 Years
Published 30th June 2008
Number of Risks to UK Businesses Increases Over Past Ten Years
Power Failure and Environmental Factors Amongst Some of the Growing Risks for UK Businesses
London, UK: 25th June 2008: SunGard Availability Services , the pioneer and leading provider of information availability and business continuity services, today published a report into the major causes of business disruption over the last ten years. Analysis of SunGard's invocation logs highlights how the causes of customer invocations* (disaster declarations) have changed in the years from 1998-2007, with businesses invoking against a broader range of risks.
Whilst hardware failure has remained the biggest threat to businesses throughout the last ten years, it now accounts for a much smaller proportion of the overall number of customer invocations. In 1998, hardware failure was responsible for almost 75 percent of invocations; in 2007, it caused only 35 percent of the total number of invocations. Indeed, since 2005, less than half of annual customer invocations have been caused by hardware failure.
However, power failure has become a far more serious threat to UK businesses. In 1998 and 1999, only three percent and seven percent respectively of invocations were power-related, compared to 31 percent in 2006 and 22 percent in 2007. Similarly, the threat of environmental failure has drastically increased for UK businesses over the past decade. SunGard received only a single invocation due to environmental issues in the five-year period between1998-2002, yet over the past five years environmental failures have accounted for almost four percent of the total number of invocations. Flooding has also become a much more common cause of invocation, responsible for approximately one percent of invocations between 1998-2002, yet more than four percent over the past five years.
Overall, the total number of invocations has increased very slightly over the past ten years. The largest number of invocations occurred in 2005, explained by the London bombings of 7th July when SunGard received nearly 30 invocations in the week following the bombings.
Keith Tilley, managing director UK & executive vice president Europe, SunGard Availability Services , said: “What is noticeable from these figures is that more and more businesses are being impacted by events that are very often beyond their control, such as flooding and power failure. Businesses have become better at protecting themselves against risks such as data corruption where investment and policies can reduce the threat to business operations. The important thing for organisations is to have a detailed contingency plan in place that covers typical and worst case scenarios such as loss of applications and/or data, loss of key personnel, and/or loss of a site. A contingency plan also helps ensure that business critical data can be accessed quickly by staff no matter what the situation."
Mr. Tilley continued: "From SunGard's perspective, we have been able to maintain our 100 percent invocation success rate over the past 10 years, despite these changes in the nature of risk. The fact that this period has coincided with incidents such as the London Bombings of 7th July 2005 and last summer's heavy flooding, shows our customers that we can continue to function under the most testing of circumstances.”
SunGard Availability Services
Top Three UK Customer Invocation Causes
1998 vs 2007
1998 2007
1. 74% Hardware 35% Hardware
2. 17% Data Corruption 2. 22% Power
3. 3% Fire 3% Power 3. 12% Flooding
* An invocation occurs when a SunGard Availability Services customer calls upon SunGard to action its Business Continuity , Technology Recovery or Workplace Recovery arrangements.
'From Adversity to Availability': Organisations interested in finding out more about the changing nature of risk and how they can help ensure the continuity and availability of their operations can register to receive their free copy of SunGard Availability Services new report: 'From Adversity to Availability' at www.a2areport.co.uk.
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About SunGard Availability Services
SunGard Availability Services is the pioneer and leading provider of information availability solutions, helping to ensure that 10,000 customers in North America and Europe have access to their business-critical information systems. With four million square feet of operations space, SunGard offers a complete range of information availability solutions that include professional services, recovery solutions and managed IT solutions. SunGard provides services to support an always-on production environment, as well as over 30 technology platforms to support customers who require a traditional 24-48 hour recovery time frame. SunGard also has technology and systems management services for application and data centre outsourcing, as well as business continuity consulting services and planning software. Visit SunGard Availability Services UK at www.sungard.co.uk
SunGard Availability Services (UK) Limited has been recognised as Service Provider of the Year an unprecedented five times in the Business Continuity Awards’ ten-year history, and has been a finalist on all but one occasion: a track record unequalled in the industry. In 2008, SunGard was presented the 10th Anniversary Award for Outstanding Excellence in Business Continuity. SunGard and its customers have also achieved success in the Most Innovative Product, Most Effective Recovery, Industry Personality, Lifetime Achievement and Consultant of the Year categories, amongst others.
About SunGard
With annual revenue of $5 billion, SunGard is a global leader in software and processing solutions for financial services, higher education and the public sector. SunGard also helps information-dependent enterprises of all types to ensure the continuity of their business. SunGard serves more than 25,000 customers in more than 50 countries, including the world’s 50 largest financial services companies. Visit SunGard at www.sungard.com
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