Dealing with Disaster

Today it is not enough to spend money on protecting systems from hardware and software failures. After September 11, disaster recovery has moved up on the global agenda. Little data is available, but it is clear that regulated companies—finance, health care, pharmaceuticals, and government agencies—do a better job of protecting themselves than unregulated companies or even small companies. Those in a regulated environment might spend 1% of their IT budgets on disaster recovery. But is this enough?

Consider the implications of disasters on unregulated businesses. On September 11, Henry Schein (a $3 billion distributor of health care products based in Melville, New York) had no way to manage orders from the company's 400,000 ...

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