We’ve probably all heard the so-called statistic that “60/75/80/90% of businesses without a business continuity/disaster recovery plan who suffer a disaster/major incident/IT failure/data loss cease trading within 6/12/18 months” (delete as applicable!).

Unfortunately, the business continuity world is riddled with spurious statistics, many of which aren’t attributable to a reputable source, can’t be substantiated, and are just variations on the same dubious theme. And quoting them as facts does nothing for our credibility as professionals if we get rumbled by someone who bothers to check.

So we really ought to take most of them with a large pinch of salt.

The bottom line is that, whatever the “statistics” say, disasters or major incidents or significant disruptions, whatever we choose to call them, can hurt our businesses. Particularly if we haven’t thought in advance about how we’d deal with the consequences.

So whatever the percentage of businesses that do or don’t actually go bust, and whatever the timescales within which this may or may not happen, is any of it really relevant to the fact that we should plan to make our businesses more resilient?

After all, if we took that much notice of statistics, would any of us bother taking out insurance or playing the lottery?

Oh, and, by the way, did you know that 82% of statistics are made up on the spot?!