Today’s society relies heavily on being connected to service providers. The ability of a business to transact or provide services online is now just as important as the products they offer, or the price they advertise. Retail shopping, media and entertainment, healthcare and fitness, and finance, are all good examples of the connected business ecosystem that we rely on to make our lives easier.
But what happens when our connection is lost? What happens when our data can’t be retrieved, or our online experience is disrupted? What happens when the businesses we rely on goes offline?
Fortunately for customers, in most cases the data loss or downtime impact is limited to frustration. We simply reconnect later. But while the impact to the customer is often temporary, the impact to the business experiencing data loss or downtime can be long lasting.
Today, the ease of switching carriers, or any business delivering online services means customers can quickly replace these providers and move on, in some cases, with little to no effort. So, every aspect of a service can now be scrutinized by the public: product, price, and now, downtime. Has the provider experienced data loss? Has downtime been above average? Is the business prepared for a disaster? These are the questions customers now ask when selecting new providers for the long term.
The reality is, most businesses are not protecting themselves from data loss or extended downtime. By one measure, 40% of businesses (especially small to medium businesses) will not reopen following a disaster. Another measure says the number is closer to 75%. These companies risk losing their customers forever at the first Instance of extended downtime or data loss. Some of these companies have spent years building a practice and customer experience that is unique to them and that will serve customers well over the long term. Why not protect it?
It’s for this reason that iland has built a business of protecting other businesses from data loss and downtime. iland has been focused on cloud-based data protection for over a decade. Iland’s Secure Cloud portfolio for data protection includes Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), Backup as a Service (BaaS), and Object Storage for long term retention of data. To make the onboarding easy, has developed a complete onboarding and support portfolio that gives customers the assistance they need to move to the cloud with confidence. Along the way, iland has picked up a few awards – including Veeam and Zerto Partner of the Year, CRN Magazine 5-Star Rating, and in 2019, their fourth time (in a row) as “Leader” in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for DRaaS.
It’s likely that, at some point, all businesses will experience downtime or data loss. Natural disasters happen, cyberthreats are very real, humans make mistakes, and technology fails. It’s what the business does before and after the event that matters to the customer. Were they prepared? Were they able to limit the downtime? The impact to the customer will likely be short-lived. But for some businesses, one data loss or downtime event will be one too many.
Sponsored by iLand
By Steve Prentice
