Verizon Small Biz Blog

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We all know the superstition around Friday the 13^th and bad luck – but that’s all it is. . . superstition.  When it comes to the unexpected, there’s a different adage I prefer –  “A stitch in time saves nine.”

In my line of work, I’m constantly thinking about how unforeseen events may impact small business owners. Recent news coverage surrounding floods in Iowa, fires in California, tornadoes across Oklahoma and the impending hurricane season cause me to wonder if small businesses have effectively prepared themselves for potential loss. The fact is a major disaster isn’t always a massive natural occurrence – a break-in, theft of a laptop or loss of a smart phone in a taxi would easily factor into a major disaster for today’s small business owner.

So small businesses need to ask themselves if they are prepared and, if not, how to get prepared. What should you be thinking about today to ensure that you don’t lose the countless hours on your finances, employment records, customer files and so on? The days of backing up your files are long gone, but what fits your budget and doesn’t take an engineer to figure out for your line of work?

This abstract will provide a vendor neutral view on small business disaster recovery. Verizon’s Monte Beck will outline how today’s small business can build up the proper defenses against major disasters and ensure they can be as prepared as possible in today’s online environment.

If you do capture most of your important documents, files and records online, how much storage is enough? Think about this. Do you file away enough documents to fill up five pickup trucks of printed documents each year? What about 100 pickup trucks? Well, if you have this same amount on your computer system at the office, what would you do if a power surge knocked out your PCs? What if your hard drive crashed? Would you be able to recover from this?

These days, I don’t think it’s the right approach to not consider some sort of back-up system for your small business. We offer varying degrees of online storage and back-up – from the five pickup trucks option (5GB) up to the 250 pickup trucks (250GB) for our High Speed Internet or FiOS Internet packages. Our plans range from $1.99/mo up to $19.99/mo with the first 30 days free for new subscribers.

Backing up your important files is an essential part of customer service in today’s business environment. Never losing valuable information can go a long way for your customers should you experience a disaster. No one ever wants to go through one, but sometimes it can happen when you least expect it. Protect yourself and look to Verizon to help you find the right solution for your small business.