How Managed IT & Disaster Recovery Can Protect Your Business from Natural Disasters

While high importance is placed on business threats such as phishing scams and security breaches, one of the most significant threats to companies is often overlooked. Natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornados, and flooding cause significant damage that most businesses are unable to recover from. Though natural disasters of significant size may be infrequent, when they hit, they can cause irreparable damage to unprepared businesses. FEMA recently reported that 40 percent of small businesses hit by natural disasters fail to recover from them. Some of these companies could have remained in business if their disaster recovery plans had included managed IT services. These management services for businesses include a pre-emptive set of strategies that help keep networks running and minimize recovery time.

Remote Data Centers

Natural disasters put buildings and their contents in jeopardy. Disasters such as the 2010 Nashville, Tennessee flood or the 2011 Huntsville, Alabama tornados, can devastate business facilities. Hurricanes and fires can devastate everything from equipment and documents to the very infrastructure of the building. An easy way to ensure documents in the building are safe is with remote data centers. These data centers are provided alongside managed IT services and allow documents to be remotely stored digitally. Not only do these services provide remote monitoring of data, they can digitally back up all documents from their remote data centers. If a company neglects to have digital copies of vital documents, they stand minimal chance of re-opening their business after a natural disaster. These remote data centers guarantee that documents are secure following such disasters.

Cloud Storage & Mobile Accessibility

Along with data being backed up remotely, another managed IT feature that helps protect data is cloud storage. When documents are digitized and placed in the cloud, they can be accessed anytime, anywhere, and from any mobile device. Though cloud storage may not have the capacity that the remote data centers possess, it is a great tool for storing files that are needed on a regular basis. Immediately following a disaster, managed IT’s cloud storage alleviates the stress of being unable to go into an office space to get documents and continue working. With managed IT’s mobile accessibility, employees can access their work remotely from their mobile devices, ensuring that the company does not fall behind due to uncontrollable circumstances.

Rapid Response Rate

When a company utilizes the services of a managed IT provider, they acquire an entire team of network experts. The disaster recovery services, offered by the provider, are put in place well before a disaster. When these systems are in place, the expert team is able to respond to any network threat rapidly — regardless of whether the company needs enterprise level managed IT services or small business managed network services. This minimizes network downtime and mitigates the chance of losing data. After a disaster occurs, the last thing a business needs to struggle with is fixing network problems. With managed IT services, businesses have a dedicated group of experts, whose sole task is to fix the network. This reduces network downtime and allows businesses to focus on repairing other problems such as infrastructure damage.

Learn More About Protecting Your Business

Discover how RJ Young’s Managed IT Services help prevent data loss and give you peace of mind during natural disasters. To discuss how RJ Young can create a disaster recovery strategy tailored to your business, fill out a contact form or give them a call at 800-347-1955.