Today, on the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center Towers, AT&T Inc. announced that a recent study finds that 75 percent of Washington, D.C., organizations that were surveyed have business-continuity plans in place, preparing them to face a man-made or natural disaster.
In several areas of business-continuity planning that were explored through a survey that AT&T conducted of businesses in the private sector, Washington, D.C., ranked in line with or above its municipal peers. However, several findings indicate that business leaders in our nation's capital can do more to prepare.
- Only 44 percent of the companies that were surveyed in Washington, D.C., implement specific protective actions when the state or federal government issues an alert for an impending disaster. Compared with the other markets in the U.S. that were surveyed, this percentage is one of the lowest.
- Forty-five percent of the companies in Washington, D.C., have updated their business-continuity plan; this is slightly lower than the national average of 48 percent. Only 32 percent of executives tested their plan in the past six months, slightly lower than the national average of 34 percent.
- One-third (31 percent) of IT executives in Washington, D.C., say that business-continuity planning is NOT a priority, slightly higher than the national average of 28 percent.
- Of those IT executives who don't consider continuity planning to be a priority, 55 percent cite that "the probability of a disaster causing a business disruption is small."
"It's evident that for some companies, various events have been a real wake-up call," said Mark Keiffer, chief marketing officer-Business, AT&T Operations Inc. "That's the good news. But it's surprising how many companies are still putting their businesses and future at risk by not adequately planning for a possible disaster."
AT&T offers services encompassing disaster planning, risk management, recovery preparedness and communications readiness to a wide array of Washington, D.C., businesses. The company also conducts Network Disaster Recovery (NDR) exercises several times a year. These exercises test, refine, and strengthen AT&T's business- continuity and disaster-response services in order to minimize network downtime. By simulating large-scale disasters and network service disruptions, AT&T can apply and refine best practices for rapidly restoring communications to government and business customers.
Throughout the past 10 years, AT&T has invested more than $300 million in its NDR program, which includes specially trained managers, engineers and technicians across the United States; and a fleet of more than 150 self-contained equipment trailers and support vehicles, which house the same equipment and components as an AT&T data-routing or voice-switching center.
