SMEs lack disaster recovery plans, new report reveals

One-third of Australian small- and medium-sized enterprises say they don’t have a plan to get their business back up and running in the event of a crisis.

The new report from flexible workplace provider Regus, which surveyed thousands of businesses worldwide and 400 in Australia, follows natural disasters and Queensland and Victoria that prevented scores of businesses from trading.

The new survey shows 50% of businesses surveyed have no business continuity plan for workplace requirements, and 36% don’t have a disaster recovery system in place for IT programs, while only 16% of larger firms are without a plan.

Across the world, 55% of firms have no disaster recovery facility, while only 23% of Australian firms view the cost of setting up a recovery centre as prohibitive, compared to the global average of 33%.

Businesses in Sydney and Melbourne were more likely to have a recovery facility than businesses in Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth, while financial services and ICT were the two sectors most likely to have some sort of recovery plan.

William Willems, Regus regional vice president of Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia, told SmartCompany this morning there are too many businesses that haven’t figured out exactly what they’ll do in a disaster.

“In Japan, hundreds of companies came to us and we had to relocate them. Even in Brisbane, businesses were having to find last-minute solutions.”

“We see exactly the same thing in Thailand as well with the recent floods. If you’re doing a last minute solution, it’s not going to be very time effective.”

Willems says it’s critical that small businesses start thinking about how they can continue operating even if a disaster wipes out their main offices, or a critical failure in some sort of service means the company can no longer function.

“We have a lot bigger companies that have strict procedures about what they must or must not do, but smaller companies don’t always have a plan.”

“We’re not the only company providing this sort of service. There are plenty of different plans for any different cost.”

Willems says SMEs shouldn’t be discouraged because of cost either, saying with plenty of do-it-yourself options and cheap plans from a variety of service providers that allow to computers and internet services.

“For a lot businesses, it’s easiest to just subscribe to a service that can keep them going. But at the very least, businesses need some sort of crisis plan.”