The results of the 2014 Continuity Central Business Continuity Software Survey: part one
- Details
- Published: Friday, 03 April 2015 09:53
Continuity Central recently conducted a wide-ranging survey into business continuity software usage. 377 people responded and the results will be published in two parts.
Respondents’ profile
Survey respondents came from all around the world, with the largest groups being from the United States (33 percent), the United Kingdom (20 percent), Australia (6 percent) and Canada (6 percent).
The majority of respondents were from large organizations, with 71 percent being employed by organizations with more than 1000 employees. 14 percent were from medium sized organizations (200 to 999 employees); 10 percent were from small organizations (10 to 199 employees) and 5 percent were from micro organizations (under 10 employees).
27 percent of organizations represented were multinationals with 50 or more locations; and 23 percent were multinationals with less than 50 locations.
A wide selection of industry sectors were represented in the survey, with the top sectors being:
- Financial services: 15.2 percent
- Banking: 12.8 percent
- Insurance: 11.73 percent
- Computer software & services: 10.13 percent
- Public sector: 6.67 percent
- Health products & services: 5.33 percent
- Telecommunications: 4.27 percent.
Key survey findings included the following:
1) 53.3 percent of survey respondents use specialist business continuity software to build, review or manage any aspect of their business continuity plan or business continuity management system. 46.7 percent do not use specialist business continuity software.
2) 88.05 percent of respondents who use specialist business continuity software use only one business continuity software package. 11.95 percent use more than one.
3) The survey asked respondents to identify the different areas within a business continuity management system where they use specialist business continuity software. The figures below gives a usage breakdown for the 201 survey respondents who use specialist business continuity software:
- Write and develop business continuity plans: 89.87%
- Manage and update business continuity plans: 89.24%
- Carry out BIAs: 79.11%
- Conduct tests and exercises: 60.13%
- Audit business continuity management systems: 55.70%
- Manage and co-ordinate incident / crisis management response: 51.90%
- Conduct risk assessments: 50.00%
- Train business continuity personnel: 39.87%
- Carry our post-incident reviews: 36.71%
- Raise awareness of business continuity within the wider organization: 34.18%
- Carry out benchmarking activities: 29.11%
4) When choosing their current business continuity software package almost a quarter (22.9 percent) made no comparative evaluation. 63 percent of respondents said that their organization had evaluated other software products and 14.1 percent didn’t know whether a comparative evaluation had taken place.
5) Respondents were asked to assess their current business continuity software solution using five criteria: Overall satisfaction; Functionality; Value for money; Ease of use; and Customer care / support. Generally most users seem to be reasonably satisfied with their business continuity software: with the highest satisfaction scores being in the areas of 'customer care and support' and 'value for money'. 'Ease of use' is the area where users seem to be the least satisfied.
The average figures for each of these five areas are shown below. Users were asked to provide a ranking out of ten, (with one being totally unsatisfied and ten being completely satisfied):
- Overall satisfaction: 7.33
- Functionality: 7.30
- Value for money: 7.59
- Ease of use: 6.79
- Customer care / support: 7.46
Part two of the survey results report will provide an analysis of the different business continuity software packages currently being used by respondents. This will be published at a later date.
