Disasters regularly force companies to suspend key business operations, yet many company executives are still doing too little to prepare their companies for the eventuality. A new survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit on behalf of AT&T and Cisco shows widespread neglect of business continuity planning - despite the fact that senior management can now be held liable for any losses that could reasonably be avoided. Failure to put in place well considered business continuity plans aimed at preventing or at least mitigating losses could be very costly in terms of profitability, reputation and market value.

To explore companies' policies towards business continuity, the Economist Intelligence Unit conducted a global survey of 240 executives on behalf of AT&T and Cisco, and carried out in-depth interviews with business continuity professionals. These are some of the key findings:

• More than 33% of companies either have no business continuity plan, or are unsure if they have one.
• 28% of companies have experienced a full shutdown of key business operations as a result of a disaster
• Less than half of the survey have confidence in their organisation's ability to fully protect their businesses in the event of a disaster.

These and other findings are presented in a new report called Business Continuity - Riding The Storm, which is available to download now.

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