Recently, two major airlines have experienced what every business thinks will never happen to them… a crippling, system crash. Southwest, and now Delta, have delayed and canceled tens of thousands of flights due to a massive, system failure and failed back-ups. I can’t say for certain, but I could imagine heads were rolling in the IT departments. Now, other than your delayed flight, what does this mean to you?
Disaster Recovery. Almost everyone has heard the term, but do you know what it means? More specifically, what does it mean for your organization? What is your plan if your systems, that run your business, fail? If you don’t have an answer to those questions, you are not alone. According to a 2015 study by Infrascale, a cloud software company, 3 out of 4 businesses fail when it comes to disaster recovery. Meaning, they have an incomplete plan or no plan in place. A lot of this is because organizations think it is too expensive to put a strategy in place. However, the same study also indicates that one hour of downtime can cost a small business up to $8,000.00. Now, just imagine the amount of money Southwest and Delta lost in recent weeks. Even more costly, is losing loyal customers. While some people are understanding, there have been a barrage of Tweets and Facebook posts about how some will “never fly Delta” or “never fly Southwest” again. What would happen if you lost a large part of your customer base due to a system outage?
The price of a well thought out, disaster recovery plan is much less than the money lost in the event of a disaster. Another reason businesses do not have a disaster recovery plan in place is because they think they are too small for something like that to happen to them. This is a common misconception. Small businesses are just as susceptible to system failure, viruses, and hacks as large organizations. Even a one-man shop should have a plan in place.
There are several affordable solutions for disaster recovery. Many are cloud based, cutting costs on infrastructure and IT support. Alternatively, you could hire an IT service company to do monthly checks of your environment and do back-ups to hosted servers. Also, an IT company can help you put together an internal plan of what do in the event of a disaster. Just like you have an emergency plan if your building were to catch fire, you should have a plan for a system meltdown.
The thought of a disaster is scary, but with a correct plan in place, the event doesn’t have to be so painful. Contact KTL Solutions at sales@ktlsolutions.com so we can help you plan your future.
Source: https://www.infrascale.com/25-disaster-recovery-statistics-for-2015-infographic/
[avatar user=”mcharuhas” size=”thumbnail” align=”left” /]MARY CHARUHAS | Account Manager
Mary Charuhas has been with KTL since 2013, starting as a sales intern in the summer of 2013 and moving to Business Development and Internal Sales in the spring of 2014. She is currently pursuing her Associate Degree in Business Management from Frederick Community College and hopes to continue her education at the University of Maryland next spring. Mary also possesses several Microsoft Dynamics ERP and CRM Sales certifications. She manages KTL’s existing customers through providing them with ongoing knowledge of the products, assisting them with upgrades and continuing projects, keeping them informed about updates/new releases, events, and training opportunities. Her charisma and passion for providing excellent customer service make her a valuable asset to KTL’s sales department.
