Disaster Recovery Journal Spring 2023

F orrester Research and the Disaster Recovery Journal have partnered to annually field market studies on business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery (DR) trends to gather data for company comparison and benchmarking, guide research, and for the publication of best practices and recommendations. This study, which focuses on BC maturity and preparedness, was first fielded in 2008 and again in 2011, 2014, 2018, and 2021. That first study provided a baseline for BC preparedness we can now compare to all the subse quent studies to see how BC maturity and preparedness are trending across time. These trends are more impor tant than ever as 2022 was a year to settle into the “new normal” of heightened risk events post-COVID-19. Specifically, we designed this study to determine the following:

n To what extent have companies formalized ongoing BC management programs with executive-level sponsorship? To which executive does the head of BCM report? n How frequently, if at all, do companies conduct a business impact analysis (BIA) and risk assessment? n To what extent are business owners involved in the BC management lifecycle? n How well do companies document, keep up-to-date, and test their BC plans? What types of tests do companies run, and how frequently do they run these tests? What tools do companies use to manage plans? n What is the scope of BC plans? What threat scenarios do they address? Do they include components for workforce continuity? Do they include components for crisis and emergency communication? n How many times have companies invoked their BC plans in the past five years? What was the cause? How successful was the invocation? Organizations who hoped to return to “normal” post-pandemic were met instead with a “new normal” of continuing supply chain issues, work at home embraced by an average of 23% rather than 5% pre-pandemic, a war in Ukraine, and financial uncertainty which has kept business continuity top of mind. In this survey, we found: n Executive sponsorship remained high . In our 2023 survey, executive sponsorship stayed high at 96% after the leap in 2021 to 94% from a consistent 88% in both 2018 and 2014 (see Figure 1). Proving the “new normal” keeps business continuity front and center, of the 96% who report executive support 42% report it’s “significant,” up from 38% in 2021 and 30% in 2018. n BCM programs’ biggest mover is a reporting line into risk . BCM programs are slightly more likely to report to IT than the business. According to our study, 32% of BCM programs report into IT such as the CIO or CISO – a decrease from 2021 (26%) Overall BC Executive Sponsorship Remains High, Risk Jumps as A Reporting Structure

but an increase from 2018 (30%) and 2014 (26%) (see Figure 2). Programs that report directly into business line executives (CEO, COO, CFO, HR, board, etc.) are holding steady at 28% from 2021 (29%). But the biggest move was those programs reporting into the chief risk officer (CRO) or head of enterprise risk. In 2021, only about 9% of BCM

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