Four out of five UK firms would not survive without ‘core’ email

New research shows that UK businesses are relying on email as a core business tool more than ever.

Carried out by Harte Hanks on behalf of Star Internet, It showed that 83 per cent of businesses questioned did not think that they could survive longer than a week without email. More than one in ten (12 per cent) said that they would last less than a day without it. By contrast just two per cent felt that they could last a whole month, while a mere seven per cent were confident that their business could survive indefinitely without email access.

The research comes at a time when email borne threats to business are rising at record rates. According to figures from Star Internet’s sister company, spam now accounts for more than 60 per cent of all email traffic, while one in every 33 emails contains a virus. At its peak the recent MyDoom virus spread at a rate of one in every 12 emails. Such figures do not bode well for businesses relying on email as a prime form of communication.

Gill Hawkins, marketing director at Star Internet, said: “These results are a harsh wake-up call to businesses, at a time when viruses such as MyDoom are breaking out at an alarming rate, and hackers and spammers are becoming even more ingenious and malicious in their tactics.”

There are so many issues at stake – from lost productivity and bandwidth, and the protection of company data and other private documents to the corruption of whole networks. “As this survey shows, email communication is now business critical. If firms are in any doubt as to their survival chances, they need to take measures now to protect themselves.”

Source: www.isopps.com

British businesses labouring under false sense of security

UK companies are increasingly reliant on the confidentiality, availability and integrity of their data. Most are willing to invest to protect it, but many are finding that their backup facilities are letting them down.

These are among the initial findings from the Department of Trade and Industry’s 2004 Information Security Breeches Survey, conducted by a consortium led by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The telephone survey of some 1,000 companies of all sizes found that;

87 percent reported significant dependence on electronic data (up from 76 percent two years ago)

An overwhelming 88 percent found it easy or very easy to justify the cost of backup and disaster recovery facilities

Around two-thirds of large businesses suffered an incident in the last year where they had to restore significant data from backup (e.g. systems failure or physical theft)

Roughly half the businesses that had a systems failure or physical theft suffered major disruption to their business operations, some for up to a month

As a result, 95 percent of companies had some form of backup facilities in place. However, these vary considerably, and may represent a false sense of security. For example, only a third of businesses store their backups off-site, and less than a fifth back-up their desktops.

Only 8 percent of companies have tested their disaster recovery plans to see if they would work in practice.

Chris Potter, the PricewaterhouseCoopers partner leading the survey, said “Many businesses to not realise the value of their data until it is too late. Others think they have good backup systems in place, but then discover they are unreliable when needed. Also, we often find it the case – and the findings support this – that IT staff are unaware of what data is business critical and so should be backed up.

“There is a disconnect between the boardroom and the IT function which is potentially dangerous. Despite 9/11, the vast majority of UK businesses are living on a prayer when it comes to disaster recovery.”

source: www.isopps.com

A utility or not a utility? Is this the real question?

Users sometimes treat their business network facility as just another utility service. They expect the same reliability and availability from their network as they get from water or electricity providers.

Capital Technology has identified (a possibly not so surprising fact), that many organisations’ purchasing and implementation strategies reflect a short-term view on service and support issues, and are primarily concerned with annual warranties and pricing structures. In many cases, this leads to a company failing to grasp the importance of technology in today’s business world. It is often therefore when system goes down and business is lost or disrupted as a result, or when communications costs come under scrutiny, that support issues are identified.

In reality, the practical support required by many businesses can make a real difference to whether or not they are getting the best out of their technology investment.

It may be obvious that an organisation needs to understand IT administration, security and management issues to operate successfully. It isn’t quite so clear cut when it comes to the potential productivity and financial gains that an effective network support strategy can provide.

It’s these fundamentals basics that make LAN’s IT Support programmes really earn it’s keep for organisations throughout the South. LAN delivers a proactive support service, backed up by a dedicated help desk, remote managed services and CRM (Customer Relationship Management), Comments Stephen Johnson, General Manager, LAN Support “our philosophy is based on offering our clients a non-contracted support programme with no punishment for cancellation. LAN enables clients to break free from traditional 1 year contracts. Our service is about calling our help desk and getting the phone answered. It’s about paying for the service as you use it and not 12 months up front”

LAN Support’s Small Business Support team has increased business by 150% in 2003 as many businesses identified a need for radical new network support strategies.

For more information on our LAN Support programmes please email sales@lan-support.co.uk
or call 08707 801060