Much more common are electronic systems failures, thefts of equipment, employee sabotage and sickness, any of which can seriously damage profitability. This private sector figure showed a massive 83 per cent increase over 1995, but a breakdown of the projects themselves showed that the overwhelming majority were in the IT or IT-related category, rather than in construction. Hot sites' are cheap and can be as interchangeable as used cars on a forecourt. Virtually everything to do with their usefulness is determined by their IT-friendliness, not their aesthetics or their prestigious address. Indeed, as the cost and complexity of computer and communications networks increases, so does the importance of freedom from downtime begin to overwhelm all other corporate considerations.
Buildings can easily cease to be a major issue.
In business managers fear IT and computer failures more than they fear any possible problem that can occur with a building - up to and including its total destruction by high explosives. T his is the bottom line for 'hot sites' for, important as they are as a form of insurance, they otherwise barely exist as a separate entity. Too small, too old, too undistinguished, too inconveniently located, they have often failed to find conventional buyers or tenants on the open market because they are without original or distinguishing features of any kind. In real estate terms they are no more than terminals. The last resort of a beleaguered corporation striving to foresee and avert catastrophe.