A small business wages a war on many fronts. Not only must they wage a constant battle for productivity, ensuring that not a second of their time not a penny of their capital is wasted. Not only must they perform rigorous competitor analysis to ensure that they’re one step ahead of the competition. Not only must they ensure that their employees are motivated and empowered… they must also ensure that the tools, both physical and digital, of their trade are able to deal with the changing needs of their enterprise.
This can mean that you’re constantly ensuring that your IT infrastructure is scaled up in line with your growth so that you’re never paying for redundant solutions that you don’t need. It can mean ensuring that remote workers have the cloud based solutions that they need to do their job effectively wherever they are. Or it can simply mean that you have the right data storage solutions for your business’ needs.
When it comes to data storage you may not even be aware of exactly what your needs are nor your obligations under federal law. Here we’ll look at both and how you can use them to influence your choice in how you choose the right storage for your business’ unique needs.
Know your data storage needs
All businesses are different and depending upon the nature of your business, your data storage needs may be different even to those of your competitors. What kind of data do you handle on a daily basis? How, when and why will you need to access it? Will that data be sensitive like customer’s bank account details or credit card numbers? How quickly do you need to be able to access the data and from where? Which applications are you running and how many files do you have that are associated with them? How much of your data is old, irrelevant, duplicated or stale?
These questions are invaluable in determining your needs so that you can approach a service provider and know that you aren’t going to be overcharged for redundant solutions.
Know your obligations
If your business handles personal data, even if it’s something as innocuous as email address lists for marketing or CRM purposes, you have a legal responsibility to ensure its responsible use and safe storage. Not only are you beholden to federal law, but international law may play a part as well. The recent GDPR legislation, for instance, specifically prohibits email marketing to all parties within the EU unless they have specifically opted in to it. Failure to comply with this may result in punitive measures and a black eye to your business’ reputation.
Finding the right data storage provider
When you have identifies the specific needs and responsibilities of your business, the next step is finding a provider who will give you the storage solutions you need at a fair price. There are data storage recruitment services specifically designed to take the legwork out of this for you.
Not only can this save a great deal of time it can provide immediate and measurable ROI and produce the fast results that you need to stay agile in a busy marketplace.