Analysis of invocations at SunGard Availability Services throughout 2009 has found that, for the first time ever, more business interruptions are being caused as a result of workplace disruptions rather than by technology. In a year when the total number of invocations rose by 42% on the previous year, workplace disruption accounted for 56% of all business interruptions - the first time they have outnumbered technology issues. The number of workplace invocations rose by 150% year on year, whilst the number of technology invocations fell by eight per cent.

Commenting on the latest results, Keith Tilley, managing director UK and executive vice-president Europe for SunGard Availability Services, said: "It is vital that organisations don't lose sight of the importance of sound information availability practices in these times of lower resources and increased pressure to perform. Any reduction in measures to ensure organisational resilience is a false economy if you consider the potential damage any disruption could do to your business."

Whilst hardware failures have historically accounted for the majority of invocations, this trend has been in steady decline since 2005 and last year for the first time power failure was just as likely to cause a disaster with both contributing 27% of all invocations. The number of invocations resulting from power supply problems rose by 100%. SunGard also saw a huge rise (1,300%) in invocations caused by communications failures, which jumped into third place, responsible for 17% of all invocations. In 2009, denial of access in the workplace was up by 600% with the main causes being the G20 summit, fire and gas leaks.

Tilley continued: "As organisations become ever more reliant on technology, there is a danger that they focus their contingency planning on ensuring technology resilience and neglect the many threats to business continuity within the workplace. When one considers the pressure on other organisations to reduce operational costs such as facilities management and building maintenance, and also the huge changes to employee working practices that many organisations are currently undertaking, it is little wonder that more business risks are emerging in this area."

One area of risk which seems to have been addressed over the past year is data corruption. In 2008, data corruption was the fastest growing cause of business interruptions, but in 2009 it was responsible for seven per cent of all invocations, representing a 33% reduction as compared to the prior year. Whilst organisations have woken up to the importance of incorporating resilient processes to help ensure the integrity of their key data at all times there is still more to do.

Tilley concluded: "What we are seeing here is positive in the sense that organisations appear to be putting measures in place, and adopting new approaches to computing such as managed services and private cloud computing, which help ensure 24/7 availability of their technology. However, these results from last year clearly illustrate that information availability is much more than a technology issue. Instead it must be treated by organisations as a strategic business issue which merits careful consideration and input from the whole organisation, right up to the very highest levels of decision-making."

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