Data security matters for all businesses
It’s not surprising that data security remains one of the biggest concerns for businesses going into the new year. Whether you’re a large corporation, a small or medium sized business, or a one man show, loss of data inevitably results in lost time and dollars. Data loss is frightening. It’s devastating. Not only is losing customer data, for instance, highly damaging to your business, it can lead to client lawsuits. And think about the negative PR (“I’d never trust XYZ Company with MY data”).
What causes data loss? Well, it can range from a virus invading your computer(s) to misplacing a laptop to employee error (“oops, I’ve wiped out the whole company database”) to unauthorized individuals gaining access to your systems to natural disasters.
To maximize the safety of your data, cloud computing is the way to go. If you’re using an email client like Gmail or Yahoo Mail, your data is hosted on the web. You’re already using cloud technology.
Saving time and energy
When your data is on the cloud, it’s stored in secure data centers with data security and privacy protection far beyond what you could ever replicate on your own systems. The data is managed with an extremely high level of data protection that’s hard for most companies to even get close to matching.
In addition, frequent server backups are performed, often daily. If your data is not on the cloud, are you performing daily backups? Are you prepared to spend the time and energy that’s required to do so? If not, it’s time to move to the cloud.
We can’t simply cross our fingers, count our lucky stars, and hope that our data will be secure. Clients trust us with their data and the security (or insecurity) of this data can mean life or death for our business. What are you doing to protect your data from the causes of data loss I’ve discussed above? When disaster strikes, will you be on cloud nine or still be lost in the clouds?
Matthew Collis is part of the Sales and Marketing Team at IXACT Contact Solutions Inc., a leading North American real estate CRM firm. In addition to overseeing many of IXACT Contact’s key sales and marketing programs, Matthew works with REALTORS® to help them achieve their real estate goals through effective contact management and relationship marketing. IXACT Contact is a web-based real estate contact management and marketing system that helps REALTORS® better manage and grow their business. The system includes powerful email marketing capabilities and a professionally designed and written monthly e-Newsletter.
