Data loss is a huge threat to organizations, yet many do not protect or plan for it. Any information the organization deems an asset needs to be protected, to ensure the data is not at risk of being lost. It is possible, if the damage is bad enough, you may not be able to recover the lost data. This is the worst form of damage that can occur, but it happens because businesses lack contingency plans for such a loss. Data may be recoverable in certain instances, but it can take time and company resources to try and retrieve it.
Data loss may also affect systems that reference other databases. For example, most ads created in Photoshop need the links to each image in order to display that image, without the link the image will not display and the ad will be ruined. Also, many sales databases pull from other sources, but when that data is no longer available there will be nothing to pull from causing an error. Important emails, customer information, and customer documents, if not properly backed up, can be lost and may lead you to lose a sale. This can also affect the bid process, if a computer crashes and has existing bid information, now that bid information is lost and you may miss a deadline.
Productivity also takes a major hit. When data is lost it makes everyone’s jobs harder. Your staff is stressed trying to deal with the lost data. Your IT staff is stressed and pressured to try and recover the data. All of this takes time away from what normally needs to get done and requires people to focus their attention elsewhere instead of on their normal daily jobs. Lower productivity also hurts companies financially; wasted time is wasted money and opportunity. We live within an increasing global economy where customers expect you to operate all hours of the day. Downtime is not tolerated by you, your customers, or business partners. Furthermore, in extreme situations data loss can lead to an organization going out of business. In less dire situations many organizations experience idle employees and managers being unable to report on revenue or invoices.
Lawsuits and fines can also be an issue, especially if the data is essential to the business, many shareholders may view that as negligence causing them to leave your company, or pull their investments.
Millennium Communications Group Inc. can help. We offer extensive IT solutions and data storage solutions that can help your organization protect itself against data loss. Send us an inquiry and we will set you up with one of our industry experts to get you started. If you are interested in more information on our services, contact us using the form below!