One of the things I miss living abroad is the connection with American politics. In particular, I miss the State of the Union address. I’m not exactly sure why, but I find it reassuring to have the President address Congress and give his views on the state of our Union.

Not that I’m comparing myself to the President of the United States… but EMC recently completed some research that shows the “state of the union” of backup and recovery across Europe. The research reveals interesting backup trends as well as statistics about the likelihood of European organizations to recover from a disaster. If I were to summarize the findings: The state of union of European businesses recovery from a disaster could be better.

In the report published today European Disaster Recovery Survey 2011: Data Today Gone Tomorrow, How Well Companies Are Poised for IT Recovery, there are some very concerning data points. We certainly have no intensions of being Chicken Little and claiming the sky is falling, but the reality is that the majority of companies surveyed (74%) were not very confident they could fully recover from a disaster. A third of those surveyed said they thought they would need a day or more to become fully operational again after an incident and 5% didn’t know how long it would take them.

I don’t want to bombard you with the statistics. And I don’t want my US readers to think this is just a European trend. We hope you will take a look at the findings and ask the question how you compare against the averages.

I know I there are skeptics out there who are not sure there is a compelling reason to review their preparedness, but I’ll give you three reasons why now is the time:

• Reacting costs money. After a disaster, nearly 27% increased spending into their backup and recovery systems.  Are they addressing the cause or pouring money into the same old way of doing things?
• Insurance premium benefits. More than a quarter of the respondents were offered insurance premium reductions based on their backup and recovery, and DR strategies. More than half of the respondents never thought about this or haven’t asked the question – have you?
• Proven ROI. Remember my other blog about a new ROI study?  Not only can you improve your backup and recovery operations from a next generation backup approach, but IDC has measured an average payback in 7 months.

So, while the state of the union of European businesses readiness isn’t strong, we hope the conversation will get started on how to address the issue.  There are clear steps to be taken – starting with the recognition that something needs to change now.

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