Disaster Recovery Plans: Do You Have One?Disaster recovery and business continuity plans are issues that almost all small businesses fail to think about. More frequently, they decide they haven't the resources to address such "unthinkables."

If your business was down for 1-2 days or more, what costs would you incur?

Lost revenues and lost productivity. These are obvious. You won't make the money that you would have if you remained open. This is especially true if you provide a service. Services are inherently tied to time, and time cannot be re-created. Sure, you can work extra hours next week, but it won't be a service provided at the time it was expected. However, even if you provide a product that can be purchased next week instead of today, a customer didn't get it when they most wanted or needed it.

There are other far more serious consequences of business downtime than just unsold goods and services. There are the intangibles that can't be so easil…

Why Small Businesses Shouldn't Avoid Making Disaster Recovery Plans. Entrepreneurs and small businesses, especially ones that are fairly new, often don't think about making plans to recover in case of a disaster. However, it is the smallest business that most likely has the fewest resources to fall back on in case of disaster. Why does this happen? It isn't on an entrepreneur's radar - The challenge and hurdles of starting out are what drive small business owners. The excitement that comes with getting a new client or releasing a new product are what motivates them. To be honest, things like disaster recovery plans are a little dull and aren't part of the exciting day-to-day hustle of running a company. As a result, these issues get put on the back burner.Planning tools can seem too complex - Ideas like "risk assessment" and "business impact analysis" can be intimidating. Many SMBs may just feel the whole area is overwhelming and leave it to anothe…

Outsourcing? Really. It's OK: How it can save time and moneyAlmost by definition, small business owners and entrepreneurs cringe at the concept of outsourcing. Those who start their own companies like the control and autonomy it provides them. Unfortunately, that preference for control and autonomy may have some bad side effects when it comes to IT.

Small business don't have the resources to fully support all of their IT infrastructure needs. The present in-house staff is most likely very busy putting out day-to-day fires. One statistic suggests 65% of IT budgets go to nothing more than keeping the lights on. In short, staff is busy making sure the printer works or reloading a PC infected by a virus after an employee fell for a phishing email. This means that small firm's expenditures on IT are not improving operational, efficiency, or enhancing productivity or competitiveness.

There is an alternative. Managed Service Providers are outside consultants you can bring in to han…

Run your Business, not an IT CompanyYou went into business because you have an interest and expertise in some particular product or service. You began the firm to offer that product or service, but a dirty little problem came along with that new company. IT requirements. You need equipment, and you need networks, and printers, and data storage to keep the company up and running. As a consequence, you've become responsible for managing something you probably don't care very much about or even understand especially well.

Managed Service Providers can be a solution. A small business can off load a variety of IT tasks that are becoming a distraction to everyday business operations and strategy.Here are just two examples.

Software updates and security audits: Your present in-house staff may be spending most of its time fixing everyday problems. As a result, they may have to delay vital security measures, such as applying tested security patches or updating virus software programs. Wo…

What is the Cloud: A Simple AnalogyYou use the cloud and don't even know it. Do you go to Amazon and create a wishlist? Do you have an email account on Yahoo? That is cloud computing. All your emails are stored on Yahoo servers somewhere. They are on physical servers, of course, but they aren't on your laptop. The advantage is that when you spill your coffee onto the laptop keyboard, you haven't lost all your emails even if you never backed up your hard drive. (If you haven't, shame on you, by the way.)

Here is a simple analogy to explain how the cloud works and why it might be a very useful part of your business model. Picture the small, very cramped office space of a little start-up. You and a few coworkers sit in tight quarters with messy desktops buried in mounds of papers, files, and pizza boxes. There is absolutely no room for storage. (Throw the boxes out yourself. There are limits even to cloud technology) It will be a long time until you can afford a larger off…

Loss of Data: Causes and PreventionThe adoption of technology from the simplest of matters to the most complex problems has rendered us heavily dependent on it. We love paying our bills minutes before they are due. We enjoy seeing loved ones face-to-face on our computer screens. We can access and print our extremely sensitive records from government and financial websites in a matter of minutes instead of waiting for the mail for days. The time and resources that technology saves are invaluable, but this convenience has a very ugly side. This convenience brings costs, which could include irreparable financial, professional, and social damage. The technology that is designed to make life easier can also wreak havoc when criminals use it to breach secured, personal information. So how do we tame this beast called 'breach of data security'?

Background: The gravity of the problem: To look for a solution, we first need to understand how serious this problem is. Breaches in data secu…