Business Solutions

Data Loss Emergencies – What Do They Actually Cost A Business?

Data loss emergencies can hit any business without any prior indication of a potential problem. Sometimes data loss issues can be nothing more than a business hiccup and not to much data is lost, or the lost data can quickly be reworked  to get the situation back to normal. Conversely though large data loss scenarios can have an devastating effect on a business and the more employees they have or the more reliant they are on their IT infrastructure, then the bigger the problem.

If a main raid server has gone down and this is used to house the company’s customer relationship management software then quite literally business can stop , especially if the CRM system is principally used for sales or the company employs a large sales force.

The effect will of course impact larger companies more than smaller organisations but the effect of data loss can still be quite devastating none the less.

If the business has had the forethought to put a disaster recovery plan in place then this can be quickly be implemented to get your business into action but if you do not have one, or have completed you business continuity plan but have simply not implemented yet then the effect of the data loss can be quite far reaching.

So what is the cost of a data loss disaster? This is a question often asked by smaller business as they need to establish a sensible return on investment in order to justify the cost of setting up a plan. Unfortunately the return of investment is a negative one in most cases, that is unless there is a data emergency,  then there will be no return on investment. There will on the other side of the coin though be a large risk reduction. A good measure that could be used for a sales organisation though could be loss of potential sales.

This can be a useful yard stick to justify the return of investment in a business continuity plan so for example if a business was clearing only 2k in sales per hour then a days downtime could result in a gross loss of 16k in sales alone.

Obviously this would scale up or down depending on the business affected. Other costs that can be factored in could also include the actual cost of recovery, legislative fines due to failure to hold critical business data and of course future sales if essential client records have been lost.

As well as measurable costs a company also need to factor intangibles into any return on investment or risk reduction calculation. Typical factors here could include activities such as re-population of customer CRM systems, additional management costs and business costs of running temporary as opposed to automated IT systems etc.

Another crucial factor that needs to be taken into account during any data emergency is the sheer value of your company data, it is often extremely tempting to follow the path of least resistance and least cost by asking you IT department to try and rectify the situation, unfortunately history has shown that the chances of corrupting data even further are very high unless your IT department employs a data or raid recovery specialist.

Also if you are employing the services of one of the  data recovery services companies you need to check their potential methodology and ensure they will not work on the actual donor disks as it is crucial to keep the main data source intact at all times.

Specialist business continuity providers will have strict protocols in place to ensure the absolute integrity of the source data. Working on the original data hard drives should simply not be an option because if the file structure or data is compromised in any way then your business could experience total data loss.

For memory stick recovery help visit the IT support Manchester website.

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