'Indian SMBs don’t act until It’s too late'

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SME Times News Bureau | 15 Mar, 2011
According to a survey findings, half of the Indian small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) that have implemented disaster preparedness plans did so after experiencing an outage and/ or data loss.

Symantec Corp. recently announced the India findings of its 2011 SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey, which measured the attitudes and practices of SMBs and their customers toward disaster preparedness.

The survey findings show that though SMBs in India are at risk, they are still not making disaster preparedness a priority until they experience a disaster or data loss.

Fifty-four percent SMBs still take more than six months to implement a plan to deal with outages or disruptions related to computers or technology resources in their work infrastructure.

"Disasters are unpredictable and can happen due to natural causes, human errors or IT systems failures. SMBs which handle sensitive information such as customer records, credit card details or personnel files, cannot afford to risk data loss incidents,” said Vineet Sood, head, Channels & Alliances, Symantec.

“Findings from the research show that SMBs in India still haven’t recognized the tremendous impact of a disaster. Simple planning can enable SMBs to protect their information in the event of a disaster, which in turn will help them build trust with their customers,” he added.

The findings show that many SMBs do not understand the importance of disaster preparedness. Sixty-eight of the respondents do not have a plan in place. Fifty percent said that it never occurred to them to put together a plan and 17 percent stated that disaster preparedness is not a priority for them. Despite warnings, most Indian SMBs are still not prepared for disasters, putting them at risk.

This lack of preparation is surprising given how many SMBs are at risk. Twenty-seven percent of respondents live in regions susceptible to natural disasters. In the past 12 months, the typical SMB experienced six computer outages. The leading causes cited were cyber attacks, power outages or natural disasters.

The survey revealed that the information that drives most SMBs is not protected. Less than half of SMBs back up their data weekly or more frequently and 12 percent back up daily. In fact, 77 percent of SMBs said they would lose at least 50 percent of their data in the event of a disaster.

Lack of Preparedness Impacts the Business

Disasters can have a significant financial impact on SMBs. Outages cause customers to leave. Forty-four percent of SMB customer respondents reported they have switched SMB vendors due to unreliable computing systems. Thirty-one percent of SMB customers surveyed stated that their SMB vendors have temporarily shut down due to a disaster.

Recommendations

The survey found that 52 percent of Indian SMBs surveyed, intend to create a disaster preparedness plan in the future. As these and other organizations create plans, Symantec offers the following recommendations:

    * Don’t wait until it’s too late: It is critical for SMBs to not 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. SMBs 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.
    * Protect information completely: To reduce the risk of losing critical business information, SMBs must implement the appropriate security and backup solutions to archive important files, such as customer records and financial information. Natural disasters, power outages and cyberattacks can all result in data and financial loss, so SMBs 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.
    * Get employees involved: SMB employees play a key role in helping to prevent downtime, and should be educated on computer security best practices and what to do if information is accidentally deleted or cannot easily be found in their files. Since SMBs have few resources, all employees should know how to retrieve the businesses’ information in times of disaster.
    * Test frequently: After a disaster hits is the worst time to learn that critical files were not backed up as planned. Regular disaster recovery testing is invaluable. Test your plan anytime anything changes in your environment.
    * Review your plan:   If frequent testing is not feasible due to resources and bandwidth, SMBs should at least review their disaster preparedness plan on a quarterly basis.

Source: Symantec’s SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey