Does Your Small Business Have an IT Disaster Plan?

Many small business owners think their company’s data will always remain intact. But in reality, that’s not the case. A data disaster could occur unannounced even to the most secured small business and ruin their system database.

No matter the size of your business, you need an IT disaster plan in place. This will help your business survive in the event of data loss caused by attacks that could drain the financial resources of your business.

What is an It Disaster PLan?

An IT disaster plan outlines procedures and policies to help businesses recover their data when disaster strikes. The plan could help companies minimize loss, reduces downtime, establish alternative means of operation and restore data. 

The process combines data backup and proven disaster resolution strategies to prevent a business from collapsing due to the loss of assets.

5 Reasons Why You Need An IT Disaster Plan for Your Small Business

Having an IT disaster plan in place is crucial for the continuity and resilience of your small business. Here are five compelling reasons why you need an IT disaster plan:

Customers Expect Zero Downtime

Customers may not be patient and wait while you try to fix the bugs in your system for days. Instead, they will search for better offers elsewhere if they can’t get the exemplary service or product they desire due to data disasters.

Loss of Employees

When your small business struggles with a data disaster, it leaves employees at the mercy of angry customers who may not get the quality of service or the product they envisioned. This could lead to high employee turnover as many may resign when they can’t help the situation anymore.

Few things are as painful as seeing employees who have been loyal for years leave your business due to recurring data loss.

Business Protection

After investing resources and priceless time to build a business, it just makes sense to protect your company’s data as much as possible. But unfortunately, the long-term effects of data loss could be disastrous and may eventually lead to an indefinite shutdown of business operations.

Emergency Data Recovery is Expensive

Unplanned attempts to minimize downtime and recover data lost are usually expensive. It may take a long time for any small business to regain the cost of a quick data recovery. Planning could save you from all the stress, and you won’t be forced to hire mediocre IT professionals to reduce the cost of data recovery.

Loss of Reputation

Poor customer service could reduce customer loyalty drastically. Unhappy customers quickly spread the news about shopping online or transacting with a business. Unfortunately, it takes many years for a company to rebuild a damaged reputation.

What Should an IT Disaster plan Look like?

A disaster recovery plan is one of the best ways to reduce the cost of business operations and avoid emergency data recovery, which could be very expensive for small businesses. At this stage, it’s safe to ask, “where do I start?”

Small business owners need to realize that some data loss can be retrieved in a few minutes or hours, while others may take months. So, during the disaster recovery phase, it’s essential to have an alternative solution in place.

A temporary solution should entail maintaining a level of business activity that minimizes the effect of the loss. Therefore, periodic data backup is highly recommended before and after a disaster.

How a managed service It provider can help

Creating an effective disaster recovery plan for your small business is a challenging thing to do. However, a managed service IT provider can help you create a recovery plan that can withstand all data disasters so you can focus on managing other aspects of your business.

Data loss is a terrible experience for small business owners and their employees. Fortunately, a disaster plan can help you minimize the negative effects of the loss and eventually retrieve the data lost.