Don’t Be THAT Company!

Like it or not, the most important asset in your business is your data. I know, you may be thinking it could be your production equipment, your trucks, your employees, but believe it or not, data loss is costing companies millions of dollars per year, law suites and businesses closing their doors. Most companies say that they understand the importance of backing up their data. Despite this apparent understanding, many businesses still aren’t taking the necessary measures to ensure that their data is protected from a disaster. So I ask, “Why”?

As I visit and speak to many CEO’s, CIO’s or director level professionals the common response given is, “We don’t have the money to spend on a better disaster recovery system to protect our data”. My question to them, again is, “why”? Is it that they assume that they are protected? Maybe they’re in denial or, is it really as simple as they rather spend the money elsewhere? I’ve found that when you dive deep into conversation with them, it usually turns out to be the latter.

Although most companies express an understanding that data protection is important, they still appear to act as though data protection is either not critical, low priority, or has no role in the organization’s success. This kind of mindset is truly unacceptable in these times. With the digital landscape of today, we are creating data at an alarming rate. Data that could determine the success or failure of a business. Leaders must do their due diligence in educating themselves about the repercussions of not having a true data protection solution in place. Did you know:

93% of companies that lost their data center for 10 days or more due to a disaster filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster. 50% of businesses that found themselves without data management for this same time period filed for bankruptcy immediately. (National Archives & Records Administration in Washington)
30% of all businesses that have a major fire go out of business within a year. 70% fail within five years. (Home Office Computing Magazine)
Companies that aren’t able to resume operations within ten days (of a disaster hit) are not likely to survive. (Strategic Research Institute)
Every week 140,000 hard drives crash in the United States. (Mozy Online Backup)
These are usually the companies that land on the evening news. Don’t be THAT company!