LONDON--63% of organisations take a day or more to recover from system downtime, according to research from Acronis®. Despite living in a world where businesses operate around the clock, the majority of companies are still putting their systems, and therefore their productivity and profitability, at risk by failing to protect them adequately.

“With little room for downtime in today’s business environment, it’s surprising that many companies still don’t carry out regular backups. But backup and recovery does not have to be complicated, there are simple steps organisations can take to avoid the unnecessary costs of system failure.”

The research questioned SMB organisations and found that only 10% of companies are confident that they could recover their systems within an hour after a disaster such as a hardware crash or computer virus has struck. With system downtime meaning that critical functions such as emails and internet, order processing and sales figures cannot be accessed, many companies are leaving themselves wide open to lost revenue, lost productivity and lost customers.

Such findings stem from the fact that companies are living dangerously when it comes to backup and recovery processes. A quarter of companies 25% still back up their PCs and laptops manually, but perhaps more concerning is that a fifth 19% do not carry out backups on these individual devices at all. When you consider that up to 60% of corporate data is held on workstations, as opposed to being backed up to a server, organisations are putting their critical information at risk every day.

UK firms in particular are far less likely to backup workstations than their French and German counterparts, with a staggering 38% of UK firms failing to backup workstations at all. This is particularly concerning given the amount of data that resides on workstations.

“Looking at these findings, Acronis is concerned that in 2010, organisations across Europe are still not backing up, and perhaps more importantly, recovering properly,” explains David Blackman, General Manager of Northern Europe, Acronis. “With little room for downtime in today’s business environment, it’s surprising that many companies still don’t carry out regular backups. But backup and recovery does not have to be complicated, there are simple steps organisations can take to avoid the unnecessary costs of system failure.”

The survey was conducted by Acronis and research house Vanson Bourne. The sample consisted of 600 SMB and mid-market organisations 250-1,000 employees. Respondents were those within the organisation responsible for IT.

Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 is a portfolio of easy to use disaster recovery products that combine data deduplication, enhanced support for virtual environments, and centralised management features based on the vendor’s leading disk imaging and bare metal technology.

About Acronis

Acronis is a leading provider of onsite and offsite backup, disaster recovery and security solutions. Its patented disk imaging and management technology enables corporations and individuals to protect digital assets in physical and virtual environments. With Acronis' backup, recovery, server consolidation and virtualization migration software, users protect their digital information, maintain business continuity and reduce downtime. Acronis software is sold in more than 180 countries and available in 13 languages. For additional information, please visit http://www.acronis.co.uk/resource/tech-talk/whitepapers. Follow Acronis on Twitter: http://twitter.com/acronis.

Acronis® and the Acronis logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Acronis Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.

About Vanson Bourne

Vanson Bourne specialises in undertaking user research within a technology context. The company interviews senior decision makers from a variety of functions, across a whole range of industries, in organisations from the smallest to the largest, in markets throughout the Globe. Vanson Bourne's clients range from start-ups to well-known companies that look for expert professionalism that delivers robust, credible research from a powerful yet unassuming brand.