Abstract

In a society where individuals and corporations have become increasingly reliant upon information technology (IT), many have experienced or witnessed the devastation that occurs when an IT disaster strikes. As businesses increasingly rely on data, information and technology, new threats are constantly emerging that affect all corporations. Several authors agree that being well prepared is more than conforming, it is also necessary (Hawkins, Yen et al. , 2000; Williams, 2002; Botha and Von Solms, 2004). Business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) are strategies implemented to increase the likelihood of effectively recovering business functions from major disaster. This research project aims to fulfill two key objectives. First, this project will examine whether the ranking of critical success factors (CSFs) for implementing a BC/DR program have changed from previous research, specifically subsequent to the events of September 11th, 2001 (9/11). Second, this study will attempt to further increase contribution to the academic and practitioner communities by outlining several CSFs not referenced within previous research. Using a multi-method approach, a qualitative analysis of 11 interviews was conducted and contrasted to results carried out through a quantitative analysis of 52 respondents through a survey questionnaire. After careful analysis of quantitative and qualitative results, four sets of CSFs were proposed and supported: BC/DR intrinsic factors, personnel requirements, analysis process and managerial issues. Surprisingly, extrinsic factors, although still required in a BC/DR initiative, have lost the lustre of the days when storage, applications and data dominated over people and processes. In essence, it was shown that the propositions formulated were confirmed, partially or fully, regarding such issues as impacts stemming from 9/11, new CSFs emanating since previous research and the aforementioned existence of a reduced set of CSFs. In addition, analyses comprised a quantitative review of the interviews, descriptive statistics and exploratory analysis using SPSS. Consequently, conclusions were derived between and within results from these types of analyses, implications to academics and practitioners suggested and future research proposed