The word “disaster” has an ominous and foreboding quality to it. One just assumes that it means the very worst possible things that could ever happen, and we tend to conjure up images of a fire, flood, tornado, hurricane, explosion or other monumental negative event. The term disaster recovery implies a large-scale relief effort in hopes of bringing the business back from the abyss and on the road to being functional again.
The New Meaning of Disaster for Business
However, for a business, a disaster need not be something totally catastrophic in an overt, sweeping way; a disaster is really anything that disrupts the main objective of a business, which is to create and sell a product or service. A fire or flood is not the only way disaster can strike a business. Things like security breaches, data theft and system crashes are somewhat less flashy than acts of God, but are (in their own way) no less dramatic. The result of these sorts of setbacks can be as jarring as a big natural disaster: data loss and the inability to operate normally, which can spell disaster for any business.
For these reasons, data backup and data recovery plans are an important part of a successful business strategy. These days, with fewer and fewer businesses relying on brick and mortar structures and instead going virtual, a company’s data is one of its most important assets. Losing access to it even for a few hours can have a catastrophic effect on productivity, relationships with customers and, ultimately, the company’s bottom line.
Disaster Protection
Fortunately, there are measures a business can take to safeguard themselves against disasters both large and small. For physical property and tangible assets, small business insurance is a must. For less tangible assets such as information, files, data and other documents, a data backup and recovery plan is essential. In the event of any disruption that affects your data, no matter what the cause, you’ll always have access to the latest versions of every document, with barely a pause in productivity.
Whether it’s a security breach, a careless employee, a power surge, a system crash or an act of God, the truth is that data can be lost or corrupted at any time. Even if the data is not lost altogether, your access to it can be severely interrupted. The good news is that a data backup and recovery plan eliminates the stress and worry about if, when and how a data disaster might strike.
Like it Never Even Happened
One of the easiest ways to protect yourself against data disaster is by enlisting the services of a reputable cloud storage and backup solution. Ideally, they’ll provide top-notch backup services, disaster recovery, data protection and system migration services if needed. All of this takes place offsite, so if one of those other disasters strikes your physical location, your data is secure and accessible. This sort of solution enables you to have access to all of your data almost immediately after a disaster occurs.
It’s hard to put a price on security and peace of mind, let alone your business and brand reputation if your business has to pause production for any reason. Enlisting a quality data backup solution will not only help you sleep better; it just makes good business sense.