5 Scary Consequences of Data Loss That Can Tear Down Any Business
Have you ever thought about the key factors that keep your business running every day? Data acts as a fuel for the modern business, allowing them to operate smoothly in their day-to-day functions. So, what would happen if a business is cut off from this essential fuel? What would happen in the scenario where a business has lost all its data due to reasons like a malware or virus attack, server crash, data corruption, or device theft?
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A Hefty Blow to Your Business Finances
If the data supporting your business is no longer available, then your business would not be able to work and earn money as usual. Money is not the only thing that suffers, the ability to operate will as well. Your finances become even more hindered if you have no data backups to work with. Recovering from a data loss may eliminate the financial cushion that you had set aside.
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Your Business and Employee Productivity Could Get Seriously Affected
In addition to the financial aspect, data loss would impair the productivity aspect of your business as well. Not having access to data would make it impossible for your employees to work and your workflows to continue. You may even find it difficult to make important business decisions, since most businesses rely on data-driven decisions. Data loss puts the present as well as the future of your business at high risk.
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Your Customers May Lose Faith In You
It takes years to earn the trust of your customers, but only one unpleasant event (like data loss) to lose all the hard-earned trust. A business that has been a victim of data loss may struggle to retain the trust and loyalty of its customers, because customers will view it as negligence on the part of your business. If it is customer data that has been lost, their discontentment would only be magnified. Losing your data could also mean losing your customers. Data loss can haunt your business for years.
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Legal Ramifications May Follow Next
Data loss exposes a business to all sorts of legal actions, fines, and lawsuits. If it included customer data, you may face fines for being unable to adhere to the data protection related laws and regulations. Shareholder lawsuits are also a risk, since your business operations are affected, you could be sued for the inability duties you’re business is responsible for. You could even be sued by the customers who have been affected by the data loss. Getting caught up in these legal battles will only make the recovery worse.
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You Could Eventually Go Out of Business
Let’s hope that it doesn’t come to this, but you can’t ignore the possibility of going out of business because of data loss. Businesses going bankrupt or permanently shutting down due to a significant data loss event is not unheard of. In fact, over half of small to medium sized businesses don’t survive more than six months after a data breach. Ignoring precautionary measures for protecting your data also means your business is not ready to face the consequences of losing it.
What Can You do to Avoid These Dire Consequences?
The first step to preventing data loss, is to understand how it can happen. CTG Tech’s Free Risk Assessment can give you a clear understanding of where data loss could occur, and solutions for preventing it.
Given the severity of impact that data loss may have on your business productivity and finances, you should take some measures that can limit this impact in the event of data loss. With a reliable and efficient managed IT services provider such as CTG Tech, you can secure your data and avoid the risks of losing it.
