Data is an increasingly integral part of the enterprise. With the advent of data analtyics, more companies are leveraging software tools to gather information regarding business operations, market trends and consumer behaviors to reduce inefficiencies and increase overall operational effectiveness. In a very short of amount of time, data has become an extremely valuable commodity.
A team of researchers recently found that businesses are storing more information than ever before. These files include everything from financial transactions and payment records to customer information. The total amount of data stored by the world's businesses has eclipsed two zettabytes. SMBs and large enterprises alike are gathering massive amounts of information and are not expected to slow down anytime soon. The average enterprise has 100,000 terabytes of files stored in its data warehouses and is expected to increase that capacity by 67 percent in the next year. While the average SMB can be expected to store much less information – 563 terabytes – than an enterprise-class operation, it shows greater growth potential. Across the board, SMBs are prediced to increase their data collection by 178 percent in 2013.
Furthermore, that information presents a great deal of worth to small, medium-sized and enterprise-class businesses. Worldwide, information costs businesses approximately $1.1 trillion each year. The average enterprise spends $38 million each year on its data acquisition, storage and leveraging campaigns. Although SMBs spend, on average, $332,000 per year on data, the cost per employee is higher at $3,670.
The high cost of data loss
Losing or otherwise compromising this information could have a devastating effect on business operations and continuity. This can be especially true when the data in question relates to personal information belonging to clientele. In that circumstance, a company could be faced with diminishing public trust and support, resulting in fewer customers, decreased revenue streams and a falling stock price. It could take years to undo the damage incurred from such an incident. The loss of mission-critical information may have even greater lasting effects, as the functionality of the organization itself could be affected.
The study found that even with the high cost of data loss, companies still struggle to keep their informaiton secure. Sixty-nine percent of survey respondents reported some form of data loss in the past year. There was no one cause for these incidents. Researchers found that hardware failure, cybersecurity breaches, human error and lost or stolen mobile devices all caused data loss.
Securing data with system recovery
Cybersecurity expert Michael Krutikov recently recommended that organizations concerned about maintaining reliable access to their mission-critical information should deploy data recovery solutions to ensure that it does not become lost or compromised. Krutikov noted that although some resource-strapped business owners may not consider system restore technology an essential investment, this viewpoint is quickly becoming incongruent with reality.
"In some cases, smaller manufacturers often have few or no dedicated IT staff members, and they rarely have extra time to pursue any initiative that is not focused on running the day-to-day business," Krutikov wrote. "When there is no immediate visible risk that a data loss incident will occur, it's easy for them to de-emphasize and even neglect regular backups – especially when backup has a historical reputation for being difficult to manage. These incidents happen all too easily and far too often, and manufacturers can no longer run under the premise that backup is not a real need."
With the right system restore application in place, businesses can be sure that even if critical data is lost or deleted, administrators can always roll the system's configurations back to an earlier setting. This way, enterprises and SMBs alike can maintain the valuable information they rely on for day-to-day operations.
