Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are still not making disaster preparedness a priority until they experience a disaster or data loss.
This came out of the Symantec 2011 SME Disaster Preparedness Survey, which measured the attitudes and practices of SMEs and their customers towards disaster preparedness.
The study included more than 1 840 respondents from 23 countries in North America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America.
It was also discovered that the cost of not being prepared is high, putting an SME at risk of going out of business. According to the survey, downtime not only costs SMEs several thousands of dollars, it also causes their customers to leave.
“According to the research findings, SMEs still haven't recognised the tremendous impact a disaster can have on their businesses. Despite warnings, it seems like many still think it can't happen to them,” says David Ribeiro, small business account manager at Symantec.
“Disasters happen and SMEs cannot afford to risk losing their information or - more importantly - their customers' critical information. Simple planning can enable SMEs to protect their information in the event of a disaster, which in turn will help them build trust with their customers,” he adds.
Revealing that SMEs do not understand the importance of disaster preparedness, half of the respondents noted that they do not have a plan in place. 41% said it never occurred to them to put together a plan and 40% stated that disaster preparedness is not a priority for them.
Symantec says this lack of preparation is surprising given how many SMEs are at risk. “65% of respondents live in regions susceptible to natural disasters. In the past 12 months, the typical SME experienced six computer outages, with the leading causes being cyber attacks, power outages or natural disasters,” notes Symantec.
The survey also determined that the information that drives most SMEs is simply not protected. Less than half of SMEs back up their data weekly or more frequently and only 23% back up daily, the survey discovered.
Respondents also reported that a disaster would cause information loss. In fact, 44% of SMEs said they would lose at least 40% of their data in the event of a disaster.
According to the survey findings, half of the SMEs that have implemented disaster preparedness plans did so after experiencing an outage and/or data loss. 52% put together their plans within the last six months.
However, only 28% have actually tested their recovery plans that are a critical component of actually being prepared for a potential disaster, Symantec notes.
The security company also points out that disasters can have a significant financial impact on SMEs.
“The median cost of downtime for an SME is $12 500 per day. Outages cause customers to leave - 54% of SME customer respondents reported they have switched SME vendors due to unreliable computing systems, a 12% increase compared with last year's survey.
“This downtime can also put them out of business. Also, 44% of SME customers surveyed stated that their SME vendors have temporarily shut down due to a disaster.”
It adds that SME customers also reported considerable effects to their own businesses. When SMEs experience downtime, Symantec explains, it costs their customers an average of $10 000 per day.
“In addition to direct financial costs, 29% of the customers surveyed lost 'some' or 'a lot' of important data as a result of disasters impacting their SME vendors.”
The survey also found that 36% of SMEs intend to create a disaster preparedness plan in the future.
In that vein, Symantec advises that it is critical for SMEs not to wait until after a disaster to think about what they should have done to protect their information.
“Not only is downtime costly from a financial perspective, but it could mean the complete demise of the business. SMEs can't wait until it is too late, and need to begin mapping out a disaster preparedness plan today.
“A plan should include identification of key systems and data that is intrinsic to the running of the business. Basically, identify your critical resources, the security vendor says.
To reduce the risk of losing critical business information, the company also notes that SMEs must implement the appropriate security and backup solutions to archive important files, such as customer records and financial information.
Natural disasters, power outages and cyber attacks can all result in data and financial loss, so SMEs need to make sure important files are saved not only on an external hard drive and/or company network, but in a safe, off-site location, it says.
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