Canadian Businesses More Prepared for Disaster Than Rest of World: Study

Symantec today announced the findings of its 2012 SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey, which reveals that disaster preparedness is closely connected with small and medium sized businesses’ (SMBs) adoption of technologies like virtualization, cloud computing, and mobility. The survey also revealed how willing SMBs are in adopting these technologies, often with improved disaster preparedness as a goal, and how the move is paying off for them.

As it turns out, Canadian SMBs are generally more prepared for a disaster than the rest of the world. 34% of Canadian respondents indicated they currently have a disaster recovery plane in place versus just 26% globally.

However, the idea disaster plans appears more polarizing in Canada than elsewhere. Of those who won’t have one in place, 60% of Canadian SMBs say it’s not a priority. Meanwhile, only 42% of global firms without a plan say it is not a priority.

“Today’s SMBs are in a unique position to embrace new technologies that not only provide a competitive edge, but also allows them to improve their ability to recover from a disaster while protecting the information that their businesses depend on,” said Steve Cullen, senior vice president of worldwide marketing for SMB and cloud at Symantec. “SMBs cannot afford lengthy downtimes so the ability to quickly recover from a disaster is critical. Technologies such as virtualization, cloud computing, and mobility, combined with a sound plan and comprehensive security and data protection solutions, enable SMBs to better prepare for and quickly recover from potential disasters such as floods or fires, as well as lost or stolen mobile devices and laptops.”

Virtualization, cloud technology, and mobility are gaining SMB traction. More than one-third of them (35%) are now taking advantage of mobile devices for business use. Virtualization is also on the radar of SMBs, with 34% either currently deploying or already benefitting from server virtualization. More popular still is cloud computing, with 40% deploying public clouds and a similar number (43%) implementing private clouds.

In many cases, a desire to improve their disaster preparedness played a part in adopting these emerging technologies. In the case of private cloud computing, 37% reported that disaster preparedness influenced their decision, similar to the 34% who said it affected their commitment to public cloud adoption and server virtualization. This held true with mobility as well, with disaster preparedness influencing the decision 36% of the time.