Written by: John Mason, GM, IBM Midmarket Business
During times of crisis and natural disasters such as super storms in the Northeast U.S., earthquakes in Japan or floods in India, many businesses might feel the impact, but small businesses in particular are extremely vulnerable.
Over the past few years, weather conditions have grown increasingly erratic and extreme. What had previously been known as disaster season is now year-round and constant, and small businesses are among the most unprepared for emergencies. Unfortunately, disasters can wipe out an ill-prepared small business in seconds, according to the Small Business Administration. Specifically, Hurricane Sandy caused tens of billions of dollars of property damage—damaging or destroying over 460,000 small businesses in New York and New Jersey alone.
For small and medium businesses (SMBs), any extended loss of productivity can result in reduced cash flow through late invoicing and fulfillment, and lost orders. However, for the health of the businesses, it’s critical that an SMB be able to recover quickly after a disaster of any type. With rapid recovery in mind, how can small business owners prepare for and mitigate damage caused by a natural disaster?
The answer lies in technologies such as cloud computing, which not only provide a competitive edge during normal business and weather conditions, but also improve SMBs' abilities to recover from disasters and protect the very information their businesses depend on. This increased level of confidence in the cloud platform, combined with advanced capabilities that IBM has made significant investments in, is opening the door for SMBs to turn their attention to growing their businesses while delegating standard IT management to the cloud.
