Nine out of 10 dealers don't have disaster recovery plan finding - as widespread flooding continues

9 August 2007

 

Nine out of 10 dealers do not have a disaster recovery plan that would enable them to get quickly back to work in the event of a disaster such as a fire, major theft or - most topically - a flood.

 

That is the finding of dealer management system Pinewood, which says that getting their DMS back in operation would be the key to getting life back to normal for most dealers.

 

Managing director Neville Briggs said: "A flood, fire or major theft of IT equipment could potentially put a dealer who does not have a recovery plan out of business - something that the events of the last few weeks have brought into sharp focus.

 

"The biggest problem is loss of data. It is pretty much impossible for a dealership to operate today without a properly functioning DMS and its historic data.

 

"Without this, they don't know who their customers are, what work they have booked in, the state of their accounts and can even find it difficult to pay their staff.

 

"However, it is still common to walk into a dealership and find that they do not regularly back up their data onto some kind of external device.

 

"Sometimes, even if that data is backed up, the tapes or external drives used for back up are often stored on the premises, meaning that they could potentially be affected by the same disaster factors that make the DMS unavailable.

 

"Wet back up tapes are not usually of any use at all, for example."

 

The process of recovering from disaster is simplified for dealers who use DMS systems that are hosted online such as Pinewood's Pinnacle, Briggs explained.

 

He said: "The system and all its data, which are stored in our remote flood and fire protected data hosting centre, can be accessed by anyone with a broadband connection on any computer, so getting back to normal is very simple.

 

"A dealer could move from a flood affected site and be back up and running in a matter of hours or days rather than weeks or months."

 

The disaster recovery research was identified through Pinewood's rolling research, which covers more than 1,000 dealers using its own and other dealer management systems.

 

 

For further details please contact Simon Wells at
Paperchase Public Relations on 01283 711311
or e-mail simon@paperchasepr.co.uk