Is Your Organization Ahead or Behind the Curve?:

Cybercrime and cybersecurity have only grown since the first major data breaches that happened in 2013. According to Ponemon Institute, there has already been a 5% increase in the average cost of a data breach in the US since 2016. Cybercrime has now become the number one threat that's facing US businesses, regardless of size, with attacks becoming more frequent, more sophisticated, and costing businesses more money in ransom payouts than any other country.

However, despite this, Ponemon also discovered that 60% of organizations don't have a fully documented disaster recovery plan in the case of lost data. As an IT marketer, the ability to identify and connect with these businesses is paramount in ensuring that organizations are able to recover their critical data in the case of a disaster, whether it be a data breach, power outage, or natural disaster.

But how do marketers reach these businesses? How do they discover what the major challenges or pain points that businesses might be experiencing?

The answer is benchmarking studies and they show surprising insights when it comes to disaster recovery.

What is a benchmark study?

Benchmark studies have a number of definitions that cater to a particular industries or companies, but overall, benchmarking is a way to discover what is the best performance being achieved. These results are often used to address several factors and make decisions such as:

•         Identifying gaps in an organization processes
•         Comparing business products and services
•         Comparing processes and performance metrics

A consumer example of benchmarking would be comparisons between the different processor manufacturers. Benchmarking can compare which CPU core is fastest, as well as a comparison of the different versions and pricing. Another example is with graphics cards. Depending on the user, these benchmarking tests and studies can help narrow down which card works for which situation; for instance, gamers will want cards that give them the best game quality, such as how many frames per second (FPS) a card is able to render. The higher the FPS, the smoother and more responsive a game will seem.

In business cases, a benchmark study can showcase metrics in terms of performance or gaps in organizational processes. However, in the below benchmarking study, they can also be done to identify business challenges.

Benchmarking Study “ Disaster Recovery

We began this blog discussing the rise of cybercrime and cyber threats that are targeting businesses of every size and in every nation, though the US pays more in ransom payments in order to retrieve their compromised data. However, while still a top challenge for businesses, data breaches aren't the only way data can be lost.

Natural disasters, like hurricanes, tornadoes, or earthquakes, can also be a contributor to lost data. A destroyed server room or crushed server can mean backups and archived data is lost. Even something as mundane as a power outage can cause a loss of data.

Present Technologies, a technology solutions provider in Canada, discovered that 66% of companies have very little faith in the capabilities of their disaster recovery plans. Present conducted a benchmark study to discover where businesses were in terms of having DR plans or procedures, but also what their thoughts were regarding selection requirements for DR solutions. 69 companies participated in the study, which consisted of five questions regarding their current and future DR initiatives.

While most participants had a DR plan or procedure within their organization, one surprising reality was that more than 30% said they did not perform regular disaster recovery tests.

 

 

Companies are beginning to recognize the importance of having DR testing, to ensure their data is able to be recovered in the event of a disaster. An important question asked during this survey was whether or not participants had experienced any downtime that had affected their business within the year “ this covered anything from a data breach to a power outage. The surprising results show the reason to have a sound DR strategy.

 

From the above, you can see that 74% of businesses were affected by a downtime event and one that managed to also affect the business. This shows that, even with a DR solution in place, downtime is inevitable; having the right DR solution and strategy can predict how quickly you'll be back up and running or if you'll be able to continue running your business during a downtime event.

What this means for marketing?

Using benchmarking, Present was able to see the challenges their current and potential clients were facing when it came to disaster recovery.  The majority of respondents had DR solutions in place, however as noted, a number of companies weren't running any type of DR testing to ensure they would be able to recover said data.

Not only did Present learn more about how businesses use disaster recovery, but in later questions, they discovered that participants were:

1.      Looking for ways to update, expand, or enhance their current DR solution

2.     What the most important attribute was for any DR plan

These are actually insightful information that helps Present understand what the next steps for these customers might be. Their benchmark study showed that reliability was the number one ranked choice when it came to the most important attribute for their DR plans. 65% of respondents want their DR solutions to be reliable, so that they don't need to be worried about retrieving their data in case something happens.

Another important revelation was that 55% of respondents are looking to update, expand, or enhance their current DR solution. Due to the high profile data breach incidents and weather related mayhem, organizations are investing more in their DR solutions in order to avoid being the next company to become a victim.

Present used the unique research and marketing data from C3 TechTargeting to create, conduct, and analyze the data from participants in this benchmark study. C3TT uses the latest research and data to discover what the trends and pain points businesses face to help marketers narrow their target focus. Contact us to learn how your company can use our unique surveys to better explore the needs of your clients.

 

 

Resources:

Top 10 cybercrime facts you need to know in 2018

Ontario Disaster Recovery Benchmarking Study