Every smart business owner knows a business needs a system recovery plan, whether due to a natural disaster, a computer hardware or software failure, interference from hackers, or other causes. Not every business owner has a system recovery plan, however. Here are five reasons to implement a system recovery plan.
1. Understand what losing your data can really cost you. It is estimated that nearly three-quarters of all small businesses in the U.S. experience a data loss due to one cause or another every year, and these data losses cost $4,700 on average for each small business. Imagine how catastrophic it would be if all of your data was on one hard-disk drive, and that drive experienced an unrecoverable failure, or if that drive was lost or stolen.
2. Prevent the risk of business failure. The University of Texas once published a study showing that 43 percent of businesses that experienced a natural disaster yet had no business recovery plan went out of business. Not being able to get your systems working again and/or losing your data can cause your customers to lose trust in your business.
3. Reduce the possibility of liabilities and penalties from failing to comply with government regulations. Financial services firms and insurance companies are often legally mandated to keep years of records available for inspection at any time. Many more companies have their own data-retention policies. If your business is required to keep records on a long-term business, or your business is entrusted with the safekeeping of such records, it becomes highly necessary to have a system recovery plan in place and to know how you will respond in a disaster recovery situation.
4. Increase employee productivity. Taking the precautions for the safekeeping of your data and knowing how to deal with a system failure can pay off in other ways, such as making your employees more productive. Businesses are always looking for ways to improve data management (thus making data more accessible to responsible employees), and implementing a system recovery plan can address this issue.
5. Find peace of mind for yourself and your business. Getting a good night’s sleep is important to the health of any business owner, and not having to worry about data loss is one way to achieve that restful sleep.
In summary, a system recovery plan is a good idea for any growing business, whether it’s specifically aimed at disaster recovery or more generally conceived. Getting advice from IT professionals on a recovery plan is a good first step.
