It’s human nature to look at the New Year as a new opportunity.
It’s a new start. A time to look at what we accomplished last year and what we aspire to accomplish this year. Resolutions often fall into categories to improve our well being – to lose that 10 pounds, exercise more, drink less…
But do you create resolutions that focus on the health of your business?
I don’t have any secrets for the best way to get rid of that spare tire around your middle. But I do have 3 resolutions that can improve the health of your business.
These resolutions are based on observations I see from the EMC Global Data Protection Index, which is the result on a global survey of more than 3,000 IT decision makers in 24 countries. It quantifies the current state of data protection and also establishes a maturity index to rank preparedness of organizations.
Resolution #1: Plan for the Unplanned.
Employee sabotage and fire are great storylines for the movies. But it is the mundane IT problems that will most likely disrupt your business. Hardware and software failure along with loss of power are the Top 3 reasons for disruption.
Ensure you have a data protection plan that prepares for the most common problems, and not just extraordinary but rare events like a fire or natural disaster.
Resolution #2: Protect Your Key Digital Assets.
The risks from unplanned systems downtime and data loss are more than IT problems. They have direct impacts on your organization’s health, including loss of revenue, delays in bringing new products to market, and loss of customer confidence. You work hard to acquire and retain customers. It would be a shame to lose a customer to the competition because of inadequate data protection.
Incorporate a continuum of data protection in your organization to make sure that your applications and data are protected to the right level based on their value within your business processes and to your customers.
Resolution #3: Prepare for the Future.
We are at a time of unprecedented technology shifts. New generations of applications will continue to emerge that allow your business to take advantage of the capabilities without owning or developing the application. The power of these new applications is unleashed simply with a credit card. Coupled with new opportunities presented by mobile, social networks and big data analytics… the rate of innovation requires modernization of IT infrastructure.
But this change in technology does not absolve you from data protection. Regardless of where your data resides, it needs consistent protection. Don’t assume that the contract signed by a swipe of a credit card includes data protection.
Your data protection strategy needs to factor in all of your key digital assets – regardless of whether they are in your own data center, on mobile devices, or generated by a public cloud application.
How can you address these resolutions? Here are a couple of simple steps:
- Review of your data protection strategy and indentify the gaps that may exist between on premise and “born in the cloud” applications. Don’t let silos among cloud applications, primary storage, enterprise applications and virtual servers create cracks in data protection.
- Analyze whether your current data protection infrastructure can truly meet your recovery objectives. Backup alone is not likely going to meet your recovery requirements, especially if your backup infrastructure hasn’t been upgraded in a while.
Make no mistake about it – data protection has implications on the overall health of your business. With these 3 resolutions, you can save money, improve your competitiveness and protect your critical digital assets regardless of where they are sat or how they are generated.
As far as your spare tire… I would suggest reading the EMC Global Data Protection Index while you pound away on the treadmill.