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Are You Prepared?

If you are a reader of our blog, you’ll quickly notice that a central theme of our articles is security and preparedness.  A recent article in the Disaster Recovery Journal (registration is free) called “Natural Disasters and The Paperless Office” by Matt Peterson revealed some startling statistics:

  • 25% of all businesses will close their doors after a natural disaster
  • 50% of companies will likely file for bankruptcy as a result of a disaster
  • 60% of companies that experienced a loss of critical data go out of business within 6 months
  • Despite the above statistics, more than 50% of Small-to-Medium Businesses (SMBs) do not have a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) in place.

Our own web research uncovered comparable statistics from various sources. Although the percentages vary slightly, they are all unnervingly similar and equally disturbing.

It is time for all businesses, especially SMBs, to get serious about putting in place viable plans to protect employees and company data so they can continue after a catastrophic event occurs. Disasters come in many forms. Natural ones like Hurricanes Irene and Sandy are one type, significant data loss through hardware failures, software corruption, human error, and criminal activities are another.

The first and most important consideration of any DRP is the safety of people; following people-safety is the safeguarding of critical data. The mission for all businesses should be Business Continuity and that requires planning.

All business owners, company executives, and office managers should make sure their companies have a valid, tested Disaster Recovery Plans in place. Here are some links to a few of our past articles to get you started:

A great resource for you would be a free subscription to the Disaster Recovery Journal. This site has articles like the one I mentioned at the beginning of this post as well as sample plans and resource guides you can take advantage of. They also mail out a quarterly magazine that I feel is a must read.

The bottom line is that you need to act. Don’t be one of the 50% of businesses without a Disaster Recovery Plan. Your employees and businesses are too important. Disasters come in many flavors and can happen at any time. Be prepared.