Having a data recovery plan is something that every business needs, no matter what industry or sector you work in.

Currently in the UK, 32% of businesses have identified cyber security breaches or attacks in the last 12 months (Gov.uk) and only 33% of businesses have cyber security policies in place. Both of these figures are very low, leaving a lot of UK businesses vulnerable should a disaster strike.

Here are 5 reasons why it is essential for your business to have a data recovery plan:

Downtime is money

The more time your business isn’t operating, the more money it will cost your business. In fact, it is approximated that downtime can cost businesses up to £4,400 per minute.

Current and potential customers won’t be impressed if they see that your business is struggling because you haven’t taken the necessary safety precautions. And more importantly they will take their business elsewhere to a more reliable company.

Repeated downtime isn’t good for business. Without a data recovery plan, current and potential customers are likely to be turned off by a lack of reliability if your business suffers lengthy, regular downtime.

The quicker your business is up and running the happier your customers will be. The last thing that your business wants is to lose customers to your competitors who do prioritise data recovery.

Peace of mind

Cyber security isn’t always top of the agenda for most businesses, yet it should be. Should your business suffer an attack, the consequences could be severe – 90% of businesses without data recovery and business continuity measures go out of business following a disaster.

Putting a data recovery plan in place you know that no matter what happens you will always be able to recover your vital business data your business needs to run.

If anything, it delivers peace of mind. You can conduct business as usual, knowing that your data recovery plan can support your business should you face a disaster.

Hardware Failure

If a hardware failure does happen then there is a strong chance that the failure could take all your data with it.

There are ways to protect your hardware such as; cooling systems, power surge protectors and regular in house back up strategies. Another method of keeping data safe is having off site backup so that information is stored in a different location.

However, the latest way of keeping your data safe is cloud computing. This is a form of storing your data on the internet and has proven to be very popular in recent years.

A data recovery plan should include either off site or cloud backup to stop the potential loss of data that could occur.

Human Error

Everyone makes mistakes. It’s life! Your business shouldn’t suffer big consequences because of one employee making a minor error such as accidentally deleting a document or forgetting to save your document changes. The only way to make sure that data isn’t lost is to complete regular backups.

If backups aren’t completed daily, the consequences could be significant and vital business data could be lost.

If a disaster happens which is the result of an employee’s accident, then it is easy to place the blame. In the heat of the moment rash decisions can be made that as a business owner you will regret. A cyber attack can create conflict in the workplace and it’s important to prevent it.

In addition to data recovery, you may consider IT Awareness Training.

Cyber Crime

Cyber criminals are always on the lookout to steal data from vulnerable businesses and users. Hackers aren’t concerned with what the data is, as long as it has value to their victim/target.

It is likely that at some point over your business’ lifetime they will have to deal with an attack, whether it is successful or not. If your business is successfully attacked, then you could lose essential business data. Even worse, it could be sold on the dark web.

Implementing a data recovery plan is essential for any business. Should your data be stolen, a backup and business continuity process should be in place to recover your data.

Having a data recovery plan in place means that you can save your business in the event of a disaster. You cannot prevent a cyber attack 100% of the time but you can certainly implement a data recovery plan, ensuring that downtime is kept to an absolute minimum.

Failing to plan is planning to fail. Contact Neuways on 01283 753 333 or hello@neuways.com to discuss a business continuity and disaster recovery plan.