Why A Disaster Recovery Plan is Critical
If you think your business is prepared for a data disaster, you may want to think again. According to a Nationwide Insurance study, 75% of small businesses don’t have a disaster recovery plan, which can leave them in a predicament should a data disaster strike. Without a plan, it can take months for your business to recover. Can you afford that disruption?
What is a Data Disaster?
As a small business owner, you may think that you don’t have to worry about a data disaster since you already backup your data to a hard drive locally in your office. However, hardware failures account for 45% of all data disasters.
Aside from hardware or software failures, other common types of disaster include, data corruption, user error, and external security breaches. And if you think your company is too small for a security breach or malware, it’s not so. Verizon’s report finds 58% of all cyber-attacks target small enterprises simply because these businesses tend to neglect their security practices.
Benefits of Disaster Recovery
It’s best to be proactive when it comes to protecting your business and assets. Here are five reasons why you need a disaster recovery plan (DRP).
- Limit Losses
One of the benefits of a DRP is that you can limit losses. A DRP saves you from the significant expenses required to recover and restore your functionality after the fact. More importantly, it keeps you from potentially lost sales. Since critical revenue-generating activities are outlined in the DRP, you will limit not only costs but also lost revenue.
- Customer Retention
A DRP helps you to stay focused on critical business operations, including sales and fulfillment, which meet your customer needs. This means you don’t lose customers—or valuable data about your customers—during a very challenging time.
- Productivity
Because you outline critical applications, documents, and business processes during the DRP development, you will have a line of sight to the most vital activities of your business. These plans will keep your methods and applications going in the event of a disaster. Additionally, cloud-based access to files, folders, and systems under both the Cloud+ and Cloud Premium services means you get immediate access during an emergency. This keeps you and your employees productive instead of sidelined.
- Business Reputation
A DRP shortens your recovery time, minimizing disruption. Having the right plan in place helps prevent irreversible damage that can potentially ruin your company’s image and reputation.
- Strategic Insight
We get so caught up in the day to day of running our business that we don’t often think about our strategic direction. Because a DRP requires you to map out critical processes, applications, documents, people, and potential risks, it gives you a fresh perspective on your business operations. You can use this insight to reaffirm or change your strategic direction.
Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late
Start your disaster recovery planning today. It’s better to be proactive than reactive in the event of a data disaster since small businesses are never too small to be affected by one. Get a free assessment of your current IT set-up and learn how The IT Link can help you today.
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Why choose the IT Link? It’s simple: Predictable costs, a wide variety of affordable services, the best AND most cost-effective backup and disaster recovery plan available, and last but certainly not least, our team of experienced IT professionals are committed to your success. Our clients love us – are you ready to learn why? Contact Us to get to know us with a free consultation!