IT downtime costs UK £2bn a year, study finds

The report is based on a European study into the time and money businesses lose through poor management of their business-critical systems.

The time taken to fix failed IT systems costs the average UK business £208 000 a year in lost revenue, the research revealed.

France tops the league of average losses at £424 000 a year, followed by Germany (£330 000) and Norway (£271 000).

The UK is ranked eighth, above Denmark (£137 000), Belgium (£71 000) and Italy (£28 000).

Some 200 UK organisations said they suffered an average of 27 hours of IT downtime a year.

When business-critical systems are compromised, UK organisations estimated that their ability to generate revenue is reduced by 22%.

But downtime and associated costs are avoidable, according to the CA report.

Organisations can tackle downtime through a re-evaluation of their disaster recovery strategies to improve data protection and the speed of recovery, the report said.

"Doing so could have a direct impact on their financial position and help them manage their emergence from the recession", said Chris Ross, EMEA vice-president of recovery management at CA.

Three-quarters of the more than 1000 organisations polled said that the IT systems and applications affected by IT outages were mission critical.

The departments most likely to suffer during downtime were operations (76%), finance (52%) and sales (39%), the study found.
 

This story was first published by Computer Weekly

What’s hot on Infosecurity Magazine?