Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) are not taking disaster preparedness for their computer and networking systems as seriously as they should.

SMBs are at risk

Despite warnings, most SMBs are still not prepared for disaster.

Symantec’s SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey revealed that only half (50 percent) of respondents had a plan to deal with an outage or disruption to their computer or technology resources. The old adage remains, "Disaster happens to the 'other' guy's business!"

It’s not a question of IF a business will experience downtime, but WHEN

The top reasons for downtime include cyber-attacks, power outages, employee errors, and upgrades.

It is alarming that more SMBs do not have plans to help them deal with disasters and keep their computer systems up and running.

SMBs do not act until it is too late

Most SMBs don’t take action to prepare for disasters until after they have experienced loss from downtime.

The result is that this lack of preparation has a significant impact on their customers and their business.

Not being prepared can have a negative impact on your business

• Disasters can have a significant financial impact on SMBs. Downtime costs small businesses a median of $3,000 per day and medium businesses a median of $23,000 per day.
• Downtime also causes customers to leave. More than half of SMB customer respondents reported that they have switched SMB vendors due to unreliable computing systems.
• For many SMBs, disasters could also put them out of business. Forty-four percent of SMB customers stated that their SMB vendors have temporarily shut down due to a disaster. 

After a disaster hits is the worst time to learn that critical files were not backed up as planned. It is imperative that SMBs do not wait until after a disaster to think about what they should have done to protect their data. Not only is downtime costly from a financial perspective, but it could mean the complete demise of the business. SMBs can’t wait until it is too late, and they need to begin planning their disaster preparedness today.

Protect information completely

To reduce the risk of losing critical business information, SMBs must implement the appropriate security and backup solutions to archive important files, such as customer records and financial information for the long term. Natural disasters, theft and cyber-attacks can all result in data and financial loss, so SMBs need to make sure that important files are saved not only on an external hard drive and/or company network, but in a safe, off-site location.

For more information on CoDimensions' solutions for business owners, please check our Disaster Recovery solutions and contact us.