More than seven-in-ten UK organizations have had some sort of IT disruption in the last 12 months, with many woefully unprepared to content with outages.
In a survey from colocation data centre provider Asanti, 72% of senior IT decision makers said that problems with resilience had led to significant disruption or downtime, with only 31% expressing extreme confidence in their current disaster recovery and business continuity plans.
Just over half (56%) said they had fully defined and regularly tested Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs), while 36% said the same for Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) – the core thresholds set for acceptable downtime and data loss.
Six-in-ten businesses have struggled to return to normal operations after a major resilience disruption, the study noted, while 58% admitted to suffering substantial financial losses.
Notably, there was a distinct lack of confidence in organizations' risk recovery abilities, with 54% reporting low or medium confidence in handling cybersecurity breaches, and just over six-in-ten saying the same about data center outages or unauthorized physical access.
A key problem is what the researchers term a “resilience competency gap”, with critical planning, testing, and investment decisions failing to keep pace with the increasing complexity and frequency of IT threats.
The top IT downtime risks
Despite widespread cloud adoption, 51% still view cloud service outages as one of the top risks to operations.
Concerns over cloud service outages surpass even traditional IT system failures, at 49%, the study noted.
“Too many organizations assume they’re more resilient than they actually are. This research makes clear that real resilience isn’t about where your systems live – it’s about how well you’ve prepared to keep them running," said Stewart Laing, CEO of Asanti.
"Without clearly defined recovery objectives, rigorous testing and a culture of proactive risk management, even the most advanced infrastructure can fail. Business leaders must move beyond surface-level confidence and embed resilience into every layer of operations.”
Human failures are impacting resilience
Meanwhile, 89% of respondents reckon human oversight is a critical vulnerability in their resilience strategy, with more than nine-in-ten saying that operational failures due to human error could compromise backup power capabilities.
While 59% said they test their business continuity and disaster recovery plans at least every six months, these exercises aren't always as thorough as they should be. Only 31% of respondents said they felt extremely confident in their current plans.
While 77% of companies track downtime, and 73% the financial impact of resilience incidents, only 54% track less obvious indicators like reputational impact, and only 57% evaluate the impact on digital transformation goals.
“Measurement is the foundation of resilience,” said Laing. “If you’re only tracking outages and costs, you’re missing the true business impact. Resilience must be strategic, tested and integrated across infrastructure, operations and leadership thinking.”
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