Your Data Is an Asset: 4 Modern Data Protection Strategies to Implement in Your Organization

July 12, 2018

The data your business handles is one of the most important assets in your inventory. Whether we’re talking about your operational data, the data on your products, your services, your employees, and perhaps most importantly your customers, the data you have keeps your business moving forward and growing.

Consider it another way; what would happen to your business if you lost a large amount of your data, whether it was accidentally deleted or stolen? This situation is difficult to think about since the consequences can be catastrophic, proving just how important it is for you to employ a data protection strategy.

Below, we’re going to explore four strategies you can start integrating into your organization today, ensuring you’re prepared for whatever the future throws your way.

Train Your Team

The most important strategy you can implement is training and preparing your staff and team on how to manage your organization’s data is a safe and protected way. Since these are the people who are handling the data, they will be responsible for its safety.

Here, you’ll want to teach your staff how to create safe passwords (on all their devices that connect to your networks), safe IT practices, and any legislation they need to be following to maintain legality.

Plan for The Future

As a business, you should already be planning for the future, forecasting how much you’re going to grow, and the targets you want to reach within a certain timeframe. Regarding data, if you plan to grow by 5,000 customers this year, you need to ensure your data services have the space to cope with that influx of information.

By not planning ahead or being organized can lead to panicked decision-making, which can ultimately lead to flaws in your data protection processes, potentially compromising the information.

Keep Your Systems Current

On your network, it should go without saying that you need to be using protection such as anti-virus software and security firewalls. However, it’s vital that you keep these updated at all times.

Online individuals with malicious intent are constantly developing and creating new ways to infiltrate networks and systems which can compromise your data, and the security companies are constantly addressing these new issues. Failing to stay up to date can leave your organization vulnerable to these threats.

Always Store a Backup

Perhaps one of the most important strategies to implement is making sure you always have a backup of your data. No matter how prepared you are, or what precautions you put into place, there’s no telling what the future holds, and there’s no way you can prepare for the unexpected.

However, the best way to protect yourself is keeping a backup. Ideally, you want to do this daily, but weekly, or even monthly (depending on your business) may be enough. Ensure that these backups are separate from your system, either on cloud services or external hard drives, and are protected themselves. State-of-the-art data centers can help with this entire process.

Conclusion

Data is one of the biggest and most important assets your business has, and problems in this area can cause drastic consequences for you and your customers. Be smart and prepared by implementing the proper strategies, ensuring that your data doesn’t cause you any problems.