Financial Times and Symantec Conduct Survey and Web Seminar on Business Continuity Planning to Protect Information Assets and Minimize Risk

Business Wire, Sept 9, 2005

CUPERTINO, Calif. -- While Regulatory Compliance is a Primary Driver, Study Finds 78 Percent Cite Resiliency As the Primary Business Goal and Significant Gaps in Preparedness Testing

Financial Times and Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq:SYMC), today announced the results of a joint survey titled "Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery." According to the report, compliance mandates, risk requirements and market forces are substantially driving the heightened importance of business continuity planning within the financial services industry.

In an upcoming Web seminar, two of Symantec's leading certified Business Continuity Professionals serving the financial industry, will discuss the key findings of the study including best practices to help firms assess, design and audit business continuity plans. In addition, the discussion will address the need for more rigorous testing, and strategies for reducing risk capital allocations and cost. The Web seminar, titled "Financial Times and Symantec Identify Future Business Continuity Trends for C-Levels" will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 13, at 9:00 a.m. EDT and 9:00 a.m. PDT. Attendees can register at http://www.veritas.com/consulting/BCwebcast

"Banking and financial security firms are under particular pressure when it comes to understanding business continuity, as well as related regulatory compliance requirements," said Will Speck, director of research for Financial Times. "This comprehensive survey captures the increased pressure to mitigate risk and reduce the amount, and cost, of risk capital dedicated to business continuity issues."

"There is a prevailing misconception that business continuity is just about the data," said Joe Giesken, principal of Symantec's Business Continuity Management Practice. "The survey results underscore the need to view planning in a holistic manner, to fully assess and evaluate the people, processes and procedures that impact an organizations ability to operate in the face of planned or unplanned downtime. While heightened awareness is an important first step, it is clear that managing to regulatory compliance is not enough. A complete business continuity plan must include rigorous internal and inter-dependant testing, along with external, industry-wide preparedness testing to ensure the continuity of essential business assets."

About the Business Continuity and Disaster Recover Survey

The survey, which targeted key executives in the banking, financial services and telecommunications industries, asked more than three dozen questions about past, current and future practices and plans for Business Continuity. One-on-one interviews with select, senior-level CIO/CTO executives in the banking and financial services fields provided deeper insight into trends. Among the key findings:

--Business continuity compliance requirements and recent events in the financial services sector are raising the level of attention paid to the cost and efficacy of business continuity programs.

--Business unit leaders are becoming more engaged in business continuity management and disaster recovery, resulting in a blurring of the division between business units and IT, as individual teams see the value of working together on inter-related issues.

--Most companies report a much more significant focus on maintaining central data stores (Disaster Recovery), with comparably less attention paid to maintaining or restoring disrupted operations (Business Continuity).

--Executives responsible for business continuity reported significant gaps in overall preparedness, particularly as it relates to testing.

--Financial assessment is also under-attended, highlighting the need to develop systems that consider the total cost of ownership (TCO) of various business continuity options.

About Symantec's Business Continuity Management Practice (BCM)

The Symantec BCM Practice offers comprehensive business continuity services including business and compliance requirements definition and analysis, IT recovery, strategy planning and business case development. In addition Symantec offers architecture design, proof of concept creation, technology implementation and recovery plan development, along with testing and validation, maintenance and continuous improvement services.

Symantec Business Continuity Management consultants are certified professionals with an average of 15 years of experience in business continuity. These consultants bring extensive real world experience helping clients evaluate resources and recovery strategies in advance of both planned and unplanned events.

About Financial Times

Financial Times is firmly established as one of the world's leading business information brands, internationally recognized for its authoritative, accurate, and incisive news, comment and analysis. Whether in print or online, the Financial Times is essential reading for the global business community.

Printed in 22 sites worldwide, the Financial Times newspaper currently has a daily circulation of over 440,000 and a readership of more than 1.6 million people worldwide. FT.com (http://www.ft.com) is one of the world's leading business information portals, and the Internet partner of the Financial Times. It combines agenda-setting editorial content with comment and analysis, relevant financial data, discussion groups, unique dossiers on key business people and a range of tools to search the web, manage a working day and seek out leisure opportunities. FT.com has 3.7 million unique monthly users that generate over 59.6 million monthly page views.