Information (or data) forms one of the three most important assets of your company along with your staff and your customers. Without your information, your company has no direction and no ability to transact business – marketing and sales efforts cannot be conceived and implemented, sales cannot be optimized and maximum revenues from cross selling and full marketing penetration is impossible, after sales management and referral business is non existent and to cap it all, you ll find yourself in a world of trouble with the IRS, business regulatory agencies and the world at large generally.
Safeguarding your data is vital to the welfare of your business but at the same time, you still need to use this valuable resource. Staff must be able to access customer information, especially when they are in customer facing roles such as sales or customer care. Information must be capable of being manipulated and providing relevant and appropriate information at the point of use and in a manner which is commensurate with the needs of the job function. Company data must also be capable of being summarized and presented in a format which can be used effectively by business managers. Finally, information must also be capable of being protected so the integrity of the data is beyond reproach and is also able to be used by auditors and other reporting agents for filing accounts and other business declarations for tax and investor purposes.
As you can see – this is a huge task encompassing every facet of a business.
The company network must be secure and optimized which means a regular and reiterative process which analyzes and monitors existing network activity and usage. How do users access data? What do they need the data for? How secure is the data? What audit trail is available for making changes to critical data such as financial records? What happens in the event data is lost, say, due to an accident? What happens to the business if data is lost? What current trends and solutions exist which can be used to improve the utility of the data?
These questions and many more need to be asked and answered. The consequences also need to be realistically assessed and the risk quantified, preferably with a cost attached in the event of such risk becoming reality.
While a business faces numerous risks not associated with data loss , for instance the risk of being sued for defective products, similar considerations should be followed when assessing the risk of data loss. No business will be capable of providing protection from all risk and in some instances, providing and implementing a solution may not be cost effective – it is better to self insure and handle the risk if it arises. This is why it is important to attach a dollar amount in terms of cost when considering the risk of data loss. Against this is the assessment of the cost of protecting against such an event – it becomes a de facto, cost benefit exercise.
Where risks are identified and solutions implemented, there will be the issue of managing the solutions and making sure the risks covered are being properly dealt with. In addition, given developments in IT occur on a daily basis, managing change is a fact of any IT manager s life. In essence, we come full circle to our start point where we conducted an initial analysis of data needs and protection. Now, the issue is more than simple “tick box” exercises and more about inculcating a state of mind in the business, but not simply management but every member of staff. This can be achieved by scheduling regular audits, providing staff training and compiling and distributing company policies on data and network use.
Author Resource:
Lawrence Reaves works for PLANIT Technology Group, a leading provider of Virginia Beach network security and Richmond enterprise storage. PLANIT can be found online at: http://www.planittech.com .
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