The IT dependency paradigm
Since the mid-1990s, the world has witnessed a phenomenal paradigm shift in the way businesses operate. Technological advancements have impacted how daily activities are conducted to the extent that you could say that enterprise is now dependant on information and computer technology. Efficient operations need a stable, secure and reliable IT environment to optimise productivity, deliver quality service and facilitate rapid communications. For a small-to-medium size business (SMB) these factors all culminate in increased revenue potential.
Well-positioned IT means that SMBs can serve clients 24/7 from almost anywhere on the planet, something that would have been a pipe dream ten years ago. The flipside to this advantage is that business has become increasingly competitive; a single instance of prolonged network failure can make the average SMB susceptible to significant financial loss. For SMBs operating on a tight budget, network outage can be fatal.
SMBs are not the only victims of downed networks. Large corporations such as IBM, Virgin or Facebook all have their share of system outage problems. The difference is that corporate giants have the resources and resilience to cope when they are offline. Once the issues are resolved, it will be business as usual for the likes of Apple or Amazon. Unfortunately, SMBs don’t have the luxuries of unlimited budgets or several contingency IT recovery plans.
Consider two simple examples that demonstrate the effects of downtime on SMBs. Firstly, a law firm’s email system is infected with a virus and has to cough up £50,000 to restore corrupted client data before it can continue with business. Secondly, an ecommerce company selling health supplements suffers a hard drive failure and is offline for two weeks. The cost of data recovery and hardware repair is approximately £65,000. While these amounts would be a drop in the ocean for a financial giant such as Barclays, for an SMB they represent a significant fiscal blow and one from which they may never recover. Research confirms that more than 90% of SMBs file for bankruptcy following downtime of ten or more days.
Do SMBs know the real cost of downtime?
SMB executives acknowledge potential downtime and the lost data that may come with it. What they are not aware of is the annual loss resulting from network and system failures. While some CFOs may recall the exorbitant hourly rates charged by off-site IT engineers for disaster recovery or what they recently forked out to repair hardware or upgrade software, most will be unable to provide an accurate estimate of the true cost. When an IT infrastructure fails, it means much more than paying the repair bill. Following downtime is a loss of productivity and revenue, not to mention the damage to your company name and a dilution of client goodwill.
According to the Aberdeen Group, a Boston-based IT research company, downtime costs SMBs employing less than 100 individuals, an estimated £20,000 annually. Failed technology costs larger business, with 100 to 1,000 employees on the payroll, in excess of £800,000 each year. When you reflect on a figure close to £1 000, 000, it’s no wonder that many business owners toss and turn at night, contemplating the stability of their IT infrastructure, possible system failure and the consequences of downtime.
The good news is that most IT system failures can be avoided. At the very least, the severity of an incident can be easily reduced and without breaking the bank. To gain control of your IT infrastructure’s stability follow four steps: conduct a thorough risk assessment of your systems, have an IT disaster recovery plan in place, implement proactive and routine maintenance and adjust your IT budget so that it is fit for purpose.
Risk assessment is essential
For an SMB to be successful in the competitive, technology-laden world, it must align its IT with business initiatives and objectives. You must maximise employee productivity to ensure that the needs and expectations of your clients are met. To achieve this, a rigorous risk assessment of your IT infrastructure is necessary. You can then use the outcomes to make system improvements, thereby having a safe and secure IT network. Unfortunately, many SMB owners or executives fail to realise the importance of risk assessment, believing that mismanaged technology has little impact on their business. In the meantime, ineffective IT wastes times and daily eats into an already fragile SMB budget.
Symantec, a small business IT security solutions company, confirms that more than 50% of SMBs say that they do not have a data backup or disaster recovery plan in place. Moreover, 41% of companies surveyed disclosed that they had given little thought to implementing appropriate disaster recovery or business continuity plans.
Break/fix is a gamble for any SMB
Too many SMBs gamble daily with the security of their operations by not having adequate procedures in place to deal with network disruptions or downtime. Constrained by limited budgets, some companies are unable to hire in-house IT support. For SMBs that do, their IT engineers are usually stuck in the reactive rut of trouble-shooting issues that are hampering productivity. The skills and talents of the IT guy go to waste when they could be proactively working on development projects to enhance IT infrastructure functions.
Worse still are the SMBs held captive by the break/fix mentality. Break/fix is what it says, a reactive approach to repair damage after the event. Instead of having in-house IT engineers to proactively monitor and maintain the IT infrastructure, SMBs rely on expensive on-call IT consultants to fix what is broken. Besides its high cost, this form of emergency IT support means that companies experience at least 48 hours downtime while they wait for the engineer to arrive. The specialist will then need to conduct a system audit, repair hardware and upgrade software. That means more downtime and even more lost revenue.
It is fair to say that many SMBs exist in a status quo of denial when it comes to IT security. Executives believe that, due to budget limitations, they are powerless to implement effective IT infrastructure support and security. Also, some SMBs are unaware of the daily revenue lost by inadequately managed technology. As the owner or executive of an SMB, you need a ‘healthy’ fear of technology failure. All this means is to be aware of the consequences of network downtime and what you can do to preserve your IT infrastructure.
Is the break/fix status quo a viable option?
Before moving on to discuss steps you can take to establish a stable IT network and minimise downtime, reflect on some questions to decide whether or not your business can continue with the status quo of a break/fix mentality.
- What backup and recovery solutions are in place when your IT system is unavailable?
- In the event of outage, can you access IT support quickly so as to minimise the repercussions?
- Do you routinely backup your critical data, including the data store on personal devices?
- Are backups stored offsite and accessible in the event of a theft, fire or flood?
- How well is your IT infrastructure protected from virus, malware and hacking?
- Do you encrypt sensitive data and regularly change passwords?
- When last did you test and check your backup procedures?
- How much money can your SMB afford to lose as a result of downtime?
- How often does your company experience loss of productivity resulting from a downed network?
Scan quickly over the questions again, this time making some mental notes. Are you confident that your IT infrastructure is robust and not vulnerable to outage caused by cybercrime, human error, hardware malfunction or natural disaster?
Steps to preserve your IT infrastructure
If you are feeling uneasy after answering the questions, fear not. There are five relatively straightforward steps you can take to preserve your IT infrastructure and make it secure. These include backing up, updating virus protection and monitoring server drives.
1. Daily backup
Symantec confirms that only 23% of SMBs backup their data on a daily basis. That low statistic is enough to leave anybody nonplussed. Less than half conduct weekly backups. Remember that data loss can result from downtime, a natural catastrophe, theft or operator fault. The importance of regular and thorough data backup cannot be overstated. More often than not, loss data cannot be retrieved. When it’s gone, it’s gone.
2. Check backup procedures
It isn’t good only knowing that you’ve got a backup system in place. You need to know if it works. You need to ensure that your IT guy or team regularly checks backup procedures so you know that all your data can be recovered should disaster strike. You should know the devices the data is backed up to and the number of backups of each data set made. Also, in the BYOD (Bring-Your-Own-Device) age, make sure that company data stored on personal machines is also properly managed.
3. Update virus protection and enable firewalls
Believe it or not, many SMBs either have no virus protection software installed or use outdated versions. If you fall into this category, do something – quickly. Your IT structure with all its data is vulnerable to virus and other forms of malware, including ransomware. Malware comes in many disguises such as email attachments, spam, data downloads and unauthorised intrusion from malicious websites. A virus attack will corrupt your files and result in loss of sensitive data. Worse still, the virus could easily spread to your clients and infect email contacts – a guaranteed way of losing valuable business.
Annually, approximately 40% of all SMBs have their network compromised by a hacker. Also, they don’t realise that they’ve been hacked. Cybercriminals are smart and look for unprotected and open ports with no firewall cover. They are then able to infiltrate hard drive space with malicious code and files. If the code cannot be erased, a hard drive reformat is needed and with the likelihood of major data loss. It isn’t possible to say that you are 100% safe, but by enabling firewalls, backing up data, updating critical security patches and changing passwords, you are fighting your best fight against hacking and other cybercrime.
4. Monitor Server Drives
A full server can cause a myriad of problems such as server crashes, sluggish applications or email delivery failure. By proactively monitoring and maintaining your servers, you can save your SMB significant time and money in the long run.
5. Check built-in logs
Most IT problems don’t appear out of the blue. They generally start small and are unrecognisable at first; over time they progress into a serious problem putting your network and data in jeopardy. In order to nip problems in the bud, you would be wise to frequently review critical built-in logs files. These files can be indicative of IT infrastructure problems and assist your IT team to addresses issues before they lead to disaster.
Managed cloud migration benefits
Cloud-based services and virtualised backup solutions are trending now more than ever as individuals, SMBs and corporations use these technologies to mitigate downtime and quickly recover from network outages. By applying virtualisation and cloud computing to your IT infrastructure, you immediately improve business continuity. Virtualisation means that entire server are grouped into one virtual software bundle, including all your data, operating systems, applications and patches. By extension, virtualisation simplifies backup processes and also means that you can rapidly restore data should the need arise. One word of caution: migrating to the cloud and accessing a virtualised IT infrastructure still needs to be effectively managed. When used inappropriately, the cloud and virtualisation technologies can put your network and data at risk.
When your SMB takes on hosted services and virtualisation, you’ll see an instant benefit through the reduction of your IT expenditure. An added bonus is that ‘managed cloud migration’ facilitates a gradual integration of your IT infrastructure with a virtual data centre in the cloud. So managed migration means that you won’t lose sleep worrying about the security and privacy of your precious data. A further advantage is that your disaster recovery options are more flexible and varied, giving you more customisation and control of your business technology infrastructure.
