Whether you run an antiques shop, a neighborhood café, or a tax accounting firm, your data is not just the lifeblood of your business. Your data is your business. Chances are you collect data from a variety of sources, including point-of-sale (POS) systems like the one pictured below if you are a retailer. If you lose this data, however, the consequences for your business can be dire. Consider that the average data breach worldwide costs $4.45 million, according to IBM¹. For smaller firms, the damage can even be terminal, as 60 percent of small businesses must close their doors forever within six months after a breach². Now, you may ask, “How can I protect my business’s data from breaches and other disasters?”
(Image courtesy of https://safnow.org/business-advice/florist-point-of-sale-pos-systems/)
Enter disaster recovery planning, or DRP for short. This proactive approach to security allows your business to adequately prepare for a variety of disasters, ranging from data breaches and ransomware attacks to natural disasters like hurricanes and tornadoes³. DRP also mitigates these disasters’ effects when they do occur³. In this article, we will highlight the benefits of DRP for your business.
One major benefit of DRP is that it provides your business with valuable actionable insights³. If you are creating and implementing a DRP across your organization, you should analyze compliance requirements, data storage systems, external relationships, internal communications, insurance coverage, and IT budgets³. By regularly examining your company’s digital infrastructure, you can locate weaknesses within the system and stop data breaches in their tracks³. Likewise, if you already have a DRP in place, evaluating it frequently allows you to optimize your recovery objectives and improve your overall outcome if your data is lost or stolen³. This demonstrates the importance of DRP for your business.
Another advantage of DRP for your business is that facilitates quicker recovery than ever before³. In today’s fast-paced digital environment, you cannot afford even a single minute of downtime³. For example, one minute of downtime can cost you $427 on average if you run a small business, or up to $9,000 for larger organizations⁴. If your systems are down for an hour, it can cost small businesses an average of $25,620, and larger firms $540,000 on average – more than half a million dollars wasted⁴. Therefore, if your business does not have a DRP, minor breaches can quickly escalate and start wreaking havoc, forcing you to waste valuable time formulating recovery plans and reassuring frazzled customers³. Thankfully, DRP allows you to recover more quickly, so you can rapidly return to providing predictably awesome experiences for customers and employees alike³.
While DRP provides your business with valuable insights and helps you recover more quickly, it also saves your organization money³. Keep in mind that data breaches resulting from accidental data loss or stolen devices cost an average of $4.46 million¹. Therefore, many companies opt to invest in DRP solutions, as they will prevent these businesses from incurring the long-term costs of breaches and other disasters³. Not surprisingly, the cost of DRP depends on the time it demands your organization. You may spend this time conducting business impact analysis, developing subplans, initial testing, ongoing maintenance, and vulnerability assessments, though not in that order³. While each step takes your employees’ valuable time and attention, these tasks are all essential for improving your business’s disaster response capabilities³. Sure, the initial cost may be a setback at first, but DRP’s benefits far outweigh its costs in the long run³. In short, DRP is the firm foundation your business needs to cut costs and secure its tech infrastructure.
DRP helps your business reduce costs, but its ability to minimize damage – reputational or otherwise – must not be overlooked³. If your data is breached, customers will distrust you and abandon you in masse in favor of competitors³. Indeed, 65 percent of data breach victims surveyed in a recent Centrify study lost trust in an organization after the breach, while IDC discovered that 80 percent of consumers in the U.S. and other developed nations would abandon a business if their data was breached⁵. Additionally, you will land fewer clients if your business’s data is lost or stolen³. This shows that data loss, be it through phishing, ransomware, or other such attacks, can devastate your business’s reputation. Fortunately, however, DRP makes your IT team more aware of weaknesses within your tech infrastructure, so they can implement the necessary security measures³. Meanwhile, DRPs help you respond to disasters more quickly and better equip you to get your business processes running like clockwork once again³. This shows the value of DRP for your business.
Still another benefit of DRP is that it enhances your business’s security³. Chances are your company’s data recovery plan differs from your competitors’, which may be entirely different from another organization’s plan³. Larger, data-intensive firms generally prefer cloud-based and Data Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) solutions, while smaller businesses tend to take an internal approach focusing on employees’ actions and their individual responsibilities to prevent disasters³. However, no matter the size of your business, DRP must enhance your existing security tools, minimizing the risk of harmful breaches and ransomware attacks to your business³. For instance, if you have software or other tools you do not regularly use, DRP helps you locate and remove them to reduce the surface area for attacks³. Additionally, DRP provides valuable insights into weaknesses within your system that require greater security³. Furthermore, with a DRP in place, your business can better prioritize and store organizational data. In summary, DRPs improve your company’s security, giving you much-needed peace of mind.
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(Image courtesy of https://www.axiom.tech/7-components-that-make-a-great-disaster-recovery-plan/)
If you need to implement DRP for your business, navitend can help. We offer a variety of IT services and support – including Datto backup and recovery systems, as well as data loss and ransomware prevention software and training – for clients in New Jersey, New York, and eastern Pennsylvania. Our goal is to provide you with the tools you need so you can defend your data against disasters and create predictably awesome experiences for everyone in your organization.
Navitend can help you. Call 973.448.0070 or setup an appointment today.
Sources:
¹IBM Security. “Cost of a Data Breach Report 2023.” Retrieved from https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/E3G5JMBP.
²Cybersecurity Ventures. “60 Percent of Small Companies Close Within 6 Months of Being Hacked” by Robert Johnson, III. Retrieved from https://cybersecurityventures.com/60-percent-of-small-companiesclose-within-6-months-of-being-hacked/.
³Nexstor. “7 Benefits of Disaster Recovery Planning” by Troy Platts. Retrieved from https://nexstor.com/benefits-of-disaster-recovery/.
⁴Orange Matter. “Micro-Outages Uncovered: Exploring the Real Cost of Downtime for Your Business” by Sean Sebring. Retrieved from https://orangematter.solarwinds.com/2023/07/12/true-cost-ofdowntime/.
⁵Varonis. “Analyzing Company Reputation After a Data Breach” by Michael Buckbee. Retrieved from https://www.varonis.com/blog/company-reputation-after-a-data-breach.
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