"The human factor is the biggest risk we have today," says Sujatha Nadesan, country manager, Raffles Solutions.

"To train a person to be really proficient in software, it costs a lot of money and takes time to bring someone up to a standard."

Businesses must enable policy and create a culture conducive to retain such people, Nadesan told the audience at the LBR-LBO Chief Information Officer (CIO) forum held in Colombo Tuesday.

It focused on leveraging technology for disaster recovery and business continuity.

"Retaining those people is something companies must look at, that is a business continuity one needs to do."

Another important point of business continuity is the protection of a company's program source code which will safeguard the position of the business in terms of software.

The application software, criticality of the system and the impact that it will have on the business must be looked at in terms of its effect on customers, stakeholders, vendors and financial implications, the officials said.

"IT is the backbone of retail systems. Hardware, technology or environmental issues would be a huge risk and would affect the continuity of the business," says Chandana Jayasuriya, general manager IT ,Union Assurance.

Furthermore, business must be cautious on disaster recovery as the depth and financial cost of a full fledged recovery is not viable since it does not generate money for the company, says Chaminda Ranasinghe, senior vice president IT at Dialog Telekom.

Therefore, a thorough examination must be conducted before a total disaster recovery procedure.

Apart from stable software and hardware resources, business growth, profitability and sustainability are also factors of business continuity, the IT panel agreed.

The CIO forum was conducted by Vanguard Management Services for a 500-strong gathering of IT professionals and top level company officials.