Choosing the Right and Affordable Disaster Recovery Plan for your Small Business

Data breaches are only intensifying in threat potential for small businesses and the customers who choose to trust them with their data. Recent data indicates that 43% of cyberattacks target small businesses, and the consequences can be dire for companies who are not prepared for the attacks. Successful breaches can result in severe damage to a company’s reputation, market goodwill, financial loss, and revenue loss. In some cases, businesses are unable to recover from the damage at all.

Data breaches are no longer an ‘if’ scenario for small businesses, but a question of ‘when’. It’s of paramount importance for small businesses to safeguard their private information. While improving the overall security posture really helps, it’s also crucial for businesses to think ahead and have a disaster recovery plan in place so they are not at the mercy of hackers when a breach does happen. This prevents long-term data loss and provides a sure-fire way for businesses to survive even multiple data breaches. In the case of ransomware attacks, Data Backup Services NJ will also save businesses from having to pay the ransom to hackers to retrieve the key to encrypted data.

A disaster recovery plan (DRP) can be understood as a predefined approach and procedure to respond to an unplanned incident that affects a business’s IT infrastructure and get applications and systems back to normal functioning. The aim of a disaster recovery plan is to enable the business to restore normalcy as quickly as possible while mitigating damages from system failure or compromise. It’s important to understand that a disaster recovery plan is meant to recover enough data and system functionality to resume successful business operations. It may not guarantee complete functionality but allows businesses to restore services to users and resume operations at a minimal level. The more detailed and well-thought-out your DRP is, the better chance you stand to resume business functionality quickly and painlessly.

A business continuity plan (BCP) determines the approach and procedure for resuming normal business operations while coping with an emergency. This focuses on the most resource and cost-efficient method to keep your business running during and after a disaster or emergency.

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Disaster Recovering Planning (DRP) and Business Continuity Planning (BCP) are often used interchangeably resulting in people often getting confused between the two. Simply put, while BCP is dedicated to keeping business operations functional during and following a disaster or emergency, the DRP is dedicated to restoring all business applications and systems to normalcy as soon as possible. A DRP is part and parcel of any well-thought-out BCP. For instance, if a critical business system goes out of order during a disaster, your BCP will focus on keeping the business running without the system while your DRP will focus on restoring functions of that system.

Historical data suggests that 93% of companies that undergo a disaster without having a proper recovery plan in place tend to lose the business within 5 years. Even with insurance, day-to-day operations of the business becomes nearly impossible if you lose the majority of your data including critical contact lists without a recovery plan. This results in destability of regular cash flow that could potentially turn into business closure as you no longer know who your customers are or how to resume transactions with them

Failure to have a DRP in place could also result in longer disruptions to critical business systems. Recent data suggests that 50% of companies that lose critical business systems for more than 10 days never recover. As your consumers are connected digitally, it is easier than ever for your customers to find alternatives when they can’t connect to your business. No degree of brand loyalty can’t stand in the way of convenience and availability. Customers have become accustomed to having their demands met instantly. When you go out of service or offer limited service due to business disruptions for a protracted period of time, your customers may be forced to jump ship. Can you imagine the cost of winning back all those customers (or new ones) with the current degree of market saturation?

If all of the above isn’t enough to convince you to invest in IT disaster recovery planning right away, consider this – every eight hours of downtime can potentially result in a loss of as much as one half of a percentage point of market share (0.5%). In order to build it back from scratch, businesses take an average of three years or more. Without a disaster recovery plan and business continuity plan in place, most companies will find that gap impossible to bridge.

Not preparing ahead for disasters or emergencies that may arise in the course of your business is generally a result of ignorance of the exact impact. For instance, overlooking something as basic as backup power or Internet connectivity options can damage small businesses to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. It is advisable for the management to be aware of the gross dollar value of exactly how much a disaster could cost you in definite monetary terms. You could even drill down to the exact numbers of lost revenue per hour. IT Outsourcing NJ can guarantee that taking precautions for those eventualities through disaster recovery solutions will always cost your organization less in the long term.

Enrolling for Disaster Recovery As A Services is always more cost-effective. You could even pay for the plan from your total savings in insurance premiums. Best of all, you will be able to underline your guaranteed to customers that you will remain available to them 24*7*365 regardless of the situation/ environment. Having a disaster recovery plan from IT Services New Jersey will ensure that your market share, investor confidence, and customer brand loyalty continues to grow unhindered.