How Data Backup, Recovery and Governance Protects Small Businesses

Modern businesses are incredibly data-dependent. But what happens when some or all of your data isn’t available?

Well, depending on the extent of data loss, your business could suffer:

• A loss of productivity: Without access to critical files, your entire business could come grinding to a halt. 
• Regulatory fines: Data-based regulatory requirements are becoming more onerous, and you could face heavy fines if you don’t protect data correctly. 
• Unhappy clients: It’s not a good look if you can’t produce data clients ask for.

As a business, you have a responsibility to keep sensitive data secure, available and recoverable at all times. Yet many businesses don’t have strict data backup, recovery or governance procedures in place. This doesn’t just put your business at risk of regulatory fines; it threatens your productivity and continuity. 

If you know you back up

Whether you backup intermittently, don’t know how to restore files that get deleted or wouldn’t know where to find specific files in the first place, this article is for you. 

We’ll highlight the importance of data backup, recovery and governance procedures, show you the specific scenarios your organisation could face and explain the three-pronged approach you need to take to protect your business interests.

Five scenarios that highlight the importance of backup, recovery and governance

Backup and recovery procedures are far from a worst-case scenario. As we’ll see below, several events can occur across the average working day that require businesses to access and restore data.

Cyber attacks

Let’s start with the worst-case scenario first. Ransomware attacks have done more to promote the importance of data backups than any other incident. That’s no surprise, given businesses can permanently lose access to some or all of the data.

Natural disasters and other emergency incidents

Fires, floods, and other natural disasters are, thankfully, much less common reasons for data loss, but they can wipe out your in-house servers or destroy your machines’ hard drives all the same. Unlike a cyber attack where you may be able to recover your data, there’s nothing you can do to restore data in this scenario.

Accidental deletion

While the first two scenarios will hopefully never befall your business, accidental file deletion will almost certainly happen. It only takes a momentary lapse in judgement for an employee to permanently delete one or two important files. 

Data subject access requests

Data loss isn’t the only reason you need robust data backup, recovery and management procedures. What happens when a client submits a data subject access request? If you don’t know where client-related data is stored or have the means to access it, you could face serious consequences, including fines and legal action. 

Employee complaints 

Let’s look even closer to home now and what happens when an employee files a complaint about inappropriate messages sent on a Teams chat. Does your business back up this data, even if personnel delete it? Do you know where it’s stored or how to access it? 

A software’s factory settings will rarely store the data you need, which means you need strong data governance practices if you want to get to the bottom of these sorts of matters. 

Develop a three-pronged approach to protect business data

A three-pronged approach is necessary if you want to guarantee business continuity, abide by data protection laws and ensure your business does right by customers and employees.

Backup your data

Data backup is the process of duplicating your organisation’s data to protect it in the event of data loss. Most businesses already do this to a degree, but very few are as thorough as necessary. 

It’s not enough to back up your hard drive to a cloud computing service like Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive. Or to make a physical copy of every desktop or laptop’s data. 

You need to back up every piece of software your business uses. From desktop programs to cloud-based SaaS tools and instant messaging platforms, make sure to configure settings for every program independently and tailor them to your specific needs. 

If in doubt, follow the 3-2-1 rule:

• 3 copies of your data 
• 2 different types of media
• 1 kept offsite

Regular backups are essential, too. The longer you leave it between backups, the more data you put at risk. Think of all the data you would lose if you didn’t back up for a month compared to a day or a week. 

Implement a recovery process

Once you’ve correctly backed up data, you need a process for accessing and restoring it in the future. 

First, appoint one or two people who will be responsible for restoring data (or hire an IT support company to help). Next, create a document that highlights where data is stored and for how long. Speed is key in the recovery process, so it’s important those in charge know exactly where to look for the data in question. 

Make sure you have a way to access and restore data. In some cases, restoring an old backup isn’t necessary and could harm your business. If you just need historical client records, for example, or a transcript of a Teams conversation.

Build an overarching data governance strategy

You don’t just need to protect data; you need to make sure it is always available. That’s where a data governance strategy comes into play.

Data governance helps you manage your data proactively. While backups ensure your data is protected and recovery processes mean you can restore data at short notice, a data governance strategy ensures you know where data is stored, who can access it and how long you keep it. This is important for regulatory purposes, but it will also help you action your backup and recovery procedures.

It starts by understanding what data you currently hold. This is no small undertaking, especially since the amount of data your organisation holds grows by the day. While you’ll never know what every file holds, you can make a list of which programs store sensitive client data, where those files are backed up and how long you retain the data. 

How Method can help

Data backups aren’t just a precaution. They are a fundamental part of your business’ regulatory requirements and the best way to ensure business continuity. But managing all that data isn’t easy, especially when you’ve got a business to run or other, more pressing IT needs to meet. 

At Method, we excel in helping small and medium-sized businesses better manage their data. We can help you protect the data that needs protecting, build a recovery strategy that gets you back on your feet as quickly as possible, and ensure your data governance practices align with your regulatory requirements. 

For more information on how Method IT can help improve your business’ security posture, contact our team today or give us a call on 0345 521 6111.

https://method-it.co.uk/contact