ThinkTWENTY20

An article sponsored by Ricoh in the March issue of FEI Canada Finance and Accounting Review (F.A.R.) notes that “few companies’ business continuity and disaster recovery planning included ‘global pandemic.’ It didn’t impact data or systems availability that disaster recovery (DR) programs typically focus on. Yet, the pandemic massively disrupted the business world.”

Suddenly, companies needed to find ways for employees to work remotely. Where offices could remain open, new ways of working together – and sharing information and data – needed to be implemented. “From top to bottom, it forced businesses to take a hard, honest look at their systems. And for most, their business continuity and disaster recovery planning became a major focus. As organizations have peeled back the curtain on legacy DR technologies, many are recognizing that their DR programs can’t keep up with the demands — and risks — of today’s digital, cloud-driven, 24/7/365 business world.”

Even before the pandemic, most business’ digital ecosystems were expanding rapidly. They’ve seen more applications, broader networks and exponentially more data every year. Today, the typical business ecosystem increasingly includes public, private and hybrid cloud-hosted applications and systems. Information and data are everywhere. This makes it even more challenging to build comprehensive DR programs to manage and protect all these digital assets. The result, says the article is downtime events happen more frequently than ever. Seven in 10 businesses have experienced a downtime event in the last two months.

As the article goes on to say, 96% have experienced at least one system outage in the last three years. At the same time, the cost of downtime continues to grow. And the numbers are truly astounding. Just one hour of downtime can cost an average of $25,000 for small businesses. For large enterprises, the cost can average a whopping $540,000.

Despite the alarming statistics, the truth is that most businesses aren’t well-prepared to quickly and effectively recover from a downtime event. Three out of five businesses admit that they’re not confident in their ability to meet Service Level Objectives in the event of a major disruption.

The statistics above were reported when 2020 began. At that point, those numbers proved concerning. But to say that “things have changed” would be understatement. According to the article, “our world of work has evolved dramatically in the past year, with a widespread shift to remote, flexible work for many. This shift makes businesses fundamentally reliant on their remote employees’ continuous access to cloud-hosted applications.”

As a result, businesses need to manage an immense, decentralized digital ecosystem. And it’s a system with vastly more potential “fail points” (including many more third party-hosted apps) than a year ago.

In other words, if your employees are remote and your networks are down, how does your IT staff execute critical DR tasks? And if your IT staff are sick and unable to work, do you have a backup plan for your backup plan?

As the article points out, “businesses that leverage new technologies and DR service models that quickly implement more powerful and flexible DR programs will be positioned not just to survive, but to thrive in a world of more complexity and more uncertainty.”

For more, see E-Newsletters | FEI Canada.