Small business owners have a lot on their plates. Many are actively involved with day to day processes, working with customers, and are hands-on with their employees. Their business is their lifeblood, their pride and joy, and a primary driving factor in their lives.

So – what would happen to that small business if a disaster were to occur, and that company’s information and data were permanently lost?

It’s a scary and sobering thought to consider, but a very important one that any small business owner should spend time thinking about. A fire, a flood, or physical theft could potentially disrupt your business, if not put you OUT of business entirely.

Disaster recovery isn’t something that only large corporations think about; if your business saves and stores any kind of data, be it inventory, a client list, or a delivery/contact information, it needs to be protected and backed up.

Here are a few key factors that every business owner should consider when it comes to data loss and disaster recovery.

Company Failure – 93% of businesses that have lost their data for more than 10 days have gone bankrupt within 1 year; 50% of those businesses filed bankruptcy immediately. No matter what products or services you sell, your client data is one of your primary assets. Keep that data safe by backing it up locally as well as offsite. If anything were to happen to your local hardware backups, you’d still have a recent copy of it securely backed up offsite, which you can use to recover from and continue business.

And speaking of local hardware backups….

Hardware Failure – 100% of hard drives will fail, it’s just a matter of when. So even if your business is backing up locally, there’s still a potential for data loss due to drive failure. If you’re currently using tapes, research has proved that 77% of tape backups tested have found failures. Again, local backups aren’t a bad thing to have by themselves… when you partner them with offsite backup you’re basically adding another insurance policy to help protect your company’s data.

Individual Data Backup – Simple human error accounts for 32% of data loss. Many times, overworked employees can simply forget to back up the data stored on their individual computer if it’s a manual process. Having an automated backup service can help eliminate those forgotten backups and help make sure that each employee’s data is securely backed up offsite.

Data Loss and Theft From Hacking – Although data theft at large corporations like Target and TJX get plenty of news coverage, statistics show that small businesses have become much more vulnerable in recent years. Larger companies have taken the time to protect their data, so hackers are now starting to turn their attention to smaller businesses who mistakenly think they are not at risk. Last year, 31% of attacks on companies were on those with fewer than 250 employees. 14% of SMBs haven’t even bothered to put ANY security precautions into place, which will only increase the number of attacks on small businesses. Keeping your data backed up, and your network protected by a firewall, will go a long way to making sure your small business doesn’t become another statistic.

In today’s data-driven society, every business needs to help ensure their company is protected, regardless of the size of their workforce or client base. Protect your data, and securely back it up, and your company will be in business for years to come with little to no data concerns.