Skip to main content

Can You Really Afford Not to Have a Backup Plan?

  
 
According to Symantec SMB, 50% of SMBs admit to having no backup and disaster recovery plan in place. 41% of those surveyed confessed that they had never even given much thought to implementing a disaster recovery or business continuity plan. If you are one of them, then you really need to think about whether you can afford the status quo. Answering these questions will help you decide.
 
1. How often is employee productivity and customer accessibility or service stalled each day from a downed network or system?
 
2. How much downtime can your business truly afford and what kind of backup or recovery solutions are in effect when systems are unavailable?
 
3. What level of IT support can be accessed? Can it be accessed quickly enough to minimize damage? Are you confident that your business can either be back online or be able to access lost data with minimal disruption, no matter what?
 
4. Is your most critical data frequently backed up? Is the data on the personal laptops, iPads or Blackberrys of employees backed up? Are all backups stored in a location off-site and quickly accessible in the event of theft, fire or flooding? Are you using any custom installed software and is the supplier still in business should this software need to be re-installed or updated? Are account details, licensing agreements, and security settings somewhere on record, and is it duplicated off-site?
 
5. Are your systems truly protected from theft, hackers, and viruses? Are passwords to sensitive data changed whenever employees leave the company or business unit?
 
6. When was the last time you tested backup processes to ensure they are working properly? How quick were your back ups?
 
Answering these questions will help you understand if you are needlessly bleeding money every day by subjecting your business to the high hourly rates, service charges, trip fees and wait times of on-call IT support. If you are an SMB, you don’t have to fear technology failure. A trusted MSP can help you resolve these challenges in a more effective and efficient manner.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is your Business Safe from Virtual Threats?

    Did you know that 50% of small business owners think their businesses are too small to be targeted by the thieves of the virtual world? Contrary to popular belief, 72% of hacker attacks often happen to smaller firms - firms with less than 100 employees! So how prepared is your SMB? Here’s a checklist to help you find out how vulnerable you are to these attacks.   1. Do you have Antivirus protection? -  An antivirus software program can protect you from threats that originate from emails such as phishing and virus attacks. However, the most striking fact is that 61% of small businesses don’t install any antivirus software! If you are one of them, then it’s time to change!   2. How sturdy is your Firewall? -  A good firewall system protects your computers from the variety of threats that exist in the virtual world. Examples include harmful cookies, viruses, worms and other such malicious programs used by hackers.   3. Do you use a Spam filter? -  Using a simple spam filter for your e

Four ways unified communications can improve productivity Part II

Four ways unified communications can improve productivity Part II In our last blog we suggested that unified communications has value to an organization's efforts to increase productivity. It can facilitate smoother, more efficient collaboration in a 24/7 workspace. Unified communications can Improve the functionality of our 24/7 workplace - The reality of 24/7 availability has been around for a while, and learning to place constraints on that is for another e-guide. However, unified communications can play a role on the 24/7 expectation problem. For one thing, with a single portal to an individual’s multiple communication channels, an employee can more easily communicate across those channels that they are not available and therefore limit expectations for an immediate or timely response when that is not possible. Also, with a unified portal, responding to different channels in off times can be easier and therefore less time-intrusive. Improve client satisfaction - Nothin

Hosted PBX - Is it right for you?

Cloud communications is a hot topic and everyone's doing it.  Is it right for you? It might be.  It's not perfect for every business, but for most it is a great fit.   Cloud PBX, or Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) is a cost effective way of delivering advanced communication features to small and medium businesses.   Integration with Outlook and your CRM, instant messaging, video calling, desktop and document sharing, mobile access, call recording, even call centre functionality are all available to anyone.  These features used to only be available to companies with the money to shell out for an on-premise UC system - but not anymore. Why hosted? You are likely already hosting some or all of your data and applications in the cloud.  Many at least are using Office 365.  This is another opportunity to eliminate the capital and maintenance costs of hardware and software running in your office, as well as reduce ongoing costs for analog or PRI connections.  Y