BC/DR Remain Priorities For 2012 But Take A Backseat To Cost-Saving And Efficiency Initiatives

According to our Q2 2010 IT budget survey, 32% of enterprises had planned to increase spending on business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) by at least 5% in 2011. The reality is that enterprise budgets have stayed constant at 6% despite a string of devastating and high profile disasters in 2010 and early 2011. BC/DR is not all about natural disaster preparedness, but usually, high profile catastrophes like Japan's earthquake and tsunami stir business and IT executives to spend more to be prepared. Unfortunately, that's not the case this time around. The likely culprit in stalled BC/DR spending is the continuing economic uncertainty. Even in the best of economic times, it's difficult to build the business case for an initiative like BC/DR that's primarily about cost avoidance rather than return on investment. In tough economic times, it's almost impossible. With the threat of a double-dip recession on the rise in Europe and North America, now is a good time to understand what makes up the BC/DR budget and what you can do to keep BC/DR on the priority list.