Technology and business resilience specialist Databarracks has acquired Glasgow-based PlanB Consulting.

Announcing the acquisition, Mike Osborne, chairman of Databarracks, commented: “There is no better independent business continuity consultancy than PlanB. I’ve spent 30+ years in the industry and over the last few years the market has fundamentally changed.

“The old guard of business continuity specialists has been absorbed by generalist IT service providers. Sungard Availability Services sadly went into administration in the UK. Throughout the pandemic, many of the smaller consulting providers took in-house roles, leaving ‘the big four’ as an expensive alternative. The operational resilience market has become fractured across cyber, data protection, IT recovery and business continuity planning, now leaving few, if any, genuine specialists dedicated to end-to-end resilience. This acquisition creates a market-leading data protection, technology recovery, business continuity and cyber resilience business offering in one.”

Resilience director at Databarracks Chris Butler, said PlanB has been a “powerhouse in business continuity and resilience for almost two decades”.

“The world is undoubtedly more volatile and uncertain. Supply chains have come under extreme pressure and business interruptions remain highly likely. The cyber arms race shows little sign of peaking, and by the end of the decade there will likely be few businesses that haven’t been targeted and impacted," he added. “The organisations that thrive will be those who are prepared for this changing environment. PlanB strengthens this integrated approach, cultivating dynamic leadership, adaptive operations, robust technology and supportive supply chains to enable businesses to survive and prosper.”

Kim Maclean-Bristol, co-founder and director of PlanB said: “We’re pleased to find a home with an organisation that gives us a broader market reach and shares our values and vision for changing the way we make organisations resilient. Together we bring a wide range of consulting skills, real-world expertise and can now offer a complete range of business continuity, crisis management and cyber resilience services.”

Customers of the combined business can now benefit from a full suite of end-to-end operational resilience services. from data protection, disaster recovery, business continuity and incident response, through to cyber incident exercising.

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