Only 10% of businesses survive without a sound Disaster Recovery plan in place
It is a harsh reality that every year, businesses are placed at risk through the loss of data due to equipment failure, natural disasters and human error. Often such unexpected incidents are beyond human control, so having a secure data backup and recovery strategy is essential.
Without data you have no business
Businesses of all sizes have become dependent on technology. The growing amount of digital data that is stored on devices and networks is often critical to an employee's performance whatever role they have. The availability of data that feeds core applications is vital and it therefore needs to be readily accessible at all times. Moreover, as the quantity of data expands, so too does the threats against it, such as cyber attack, theft, viruses and data corruption.
A recent study by the Brother International highlights how important an issue this is becoming. One staggering statistic is that 75 per cent of business owners that responded from the small business sector stated that “a crashed computer is more disruptive to their operations than an employee who is absent from work due to illness”.
In addition, 77% said that IT breakdown has significantly impacted their business, leading to either a missed deadline or a lost business opportunity. What’s more if you have suffered from reduced office productivity due to poor technical performance then you are not alone! 85% of the respondents claimed that they been similarly affected.
Hope isn’t a strategy
Despite the potential dangers many business owners within the small and medium sized business community have their head in the sand believing that “it will never happen to them”. Perhaps the often quoted survival statistic is too much to contemplate; i.e. less than 10% of businesses survive an IT disaster without a sound recovery strategy. But hoping it will never happen to you is not the answer; preventing the business from catastrophe through a planned approach is the only safe solution.
James Stratton, MD of Connexion comments “Investing in a robust backup and recovery solution as well as DR planning always seems to be at the bottom of the list for many companies. We are often shocked by the lack of preparation in place when we take on some new clients; many of whom are completely unaware of the potential risks they are running” he continues “the sad thing is that having a solid backup and DR solution doesn’t need to cost the earth. We have implemented a whole range of solutions depending on the criticality of the particular business processes and different time horizons required to be backup and running.”
Something to think about
If one of your main servers stopped at 3.00pm today caused by a server failure what would happen? No, email, no production system, no sales system or no cash receipts; how long do you think it would take for your business to repair and restore the server?
If your building went up in smoke overnight what would you do in the morning? Where would your people work? How would they access working systems and existing data? How often do you test your backup and recovery and DR procedures?
