BWI: CORRECTING and REPLACING Symantec Study Emphasizes Need for Indian SMBs to Build Disaster Recovery Strategies

Press release from Business Wire India
Source: Symantec
Thursday, November 26, 2009 02:39 PM IST (09:09 AM GMT)
Editors: General: Consumer interest; Business: Advertising, PR & marketing, Business services, Information technology; Technology
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CORRECTING and REPLACING Symantec Study Emphasizes Need for Indian SMBs to Build Disaster Recovery Strategies
In Spite of Awareness 91 Percent SMBs do not have a Formal Disaster Preparedness Plan in Place

New Delhi, Delhi, India, Thursday, November 26, 2009 -- (Business Wire India) -- Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ: SYMC) today announced the India findings of its annual 2009 Global SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey. The report reflects the attitudes and practices of small- and mid-sized businesses (SMB) and their customers toward technology disaster preparedness. It also throws light on a large discrepancy between how SMBs perceive their disaster readiness and their actual level of preparedness. The report indicates that natural disasters, virus attacks, malicious employee behavior, and changes in IT infrastructure are key drivers for Disaster Recovery adoption in India.

It has been observed that in around 42 percent SMBs the onus of data protection and recovery lies with IT departments. The growing awareness, need, and importance of disaster planning have led to owners and senior executives (39 percent) actively participate in its management and execution.

"A startling fact is that though SMBs are well aware about outages and their impact, however, it hasn't materialized into their preparedness," said Ajay Verma, Director, Channels and Alliances, Symantec India. "While no one wants a disaster to occur, the reality is that they happen and rather than continuing to be unprepared, companies need to take simple proactive steps to protect their information. As companies communicate their preparedness plans to their customers, they strengthen those relationships and become more trusted partners."

Confidence High Regarding Preparedness

The findings show that SMBs are confident in their disaster preparedness plans. 73 percent of respondents say they are somewhat/very satisfied with their disaster plans, and a 34 percent say they feel somewhat/very protected in case a disaster strikes.

Reality Shows Confidence Unwarranted

However, the practices of SMBs reveal that this confidence is unwarranted. The average SMB has experienced three outages within the past 12 months, with the leading causes being virus or hacker attacks, power outages or natural disasters. This is alarming as almost half report they do not yet have a plan to deal with such disruptions. This SMB downtime costs their customers tens of thousands of rupees each year due to which the SMBs can -- and often do -- lose business as a direct result of being unprepared for disasters.

The survey found that only 18 percent SMBs back up daily and an average SMB backs up only 50 percent of their company and customer data on a daily basis.

Customers Significantly Impacted By Downtime

These outages were impactful as well, with 50 percent lasting four hours or more. One in two customers (59 percent) reported losing a lot of important data. Simultaneously each SMB also refer to material, presentations, whitepapers etc to prepare a recovery plan.

Recommendations

Although 91 percent of SMBs at present do not have formal disaster preparedness plan, of those without plans, nearly 76 percent say they will create one within the next six months.

-- Determine your needs: SMBs should take time to decide what critical information should be secured and protected. Customer, financial and business information, trade secrets and critical documents should be prioritized. SMBs should monitor industry reports to identify and prevent threats that SMBs face.

-- Engage trusted advisors: With limited time, budget and employees, SMBs can look to a solution provider to help create plans, implement automated protection solutions and monitor for trends and threats that SMBs should protect against. They can also educate employees on retrieving information from backups when needed and suggest offsite storage facilities to protect critical data.

-- Automate where you can: Automating the backup process ensures that it is not overlooked. SMBs can reduce the costs of downtime by implementing automated tools that minimize human involvement and address other weaknesses in disaster recovery plans.

-- Test annually: Recovering data is the worst time to learn that critical files were not backed up as planned. Disaster recovery testing is invaluable and SMBs should seek to improve the success of testing by evaluating and implementing testing methods which are non-disruptive.

About Symantec

Symantec is a global leader in providing security; storage and systems management solutions to help consumers and organizations secure and manage their information-driven world. Our software and services protect against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

NOTE TO EDITORS: If you would like additional information on Symantec Corporation and its products, please visit the Symantec News Room at http://www.symantec.com/news. All prices noted are in U.S. dollars and are valid only in the United States.


CONTACT DETAILS
Mira Davda, Symantec Corp., +91 9850780888, mira_davda@symantec.com
Ankita Upadhyay, 20:20 MEDIA, +91 9711101860, ankita@2020india.com
Rinu Jha, 20:20 MEDIA, +91 9999687155, rinu@2020india.com

KEYWORDS
CONSUMER, MARKETING, BUSINESS SERVICES, IT, TECHNOLOGY

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