Technology is increasingly a factor of competitiveness in companies, and managing it well can lead to savings, improved productivity, and—most importantly—the elimination of risks such as data loss. Preventing this requires proper preparation, an established management system, and regular system updates, since the risk of errors can be costly.

Among the main risks, two stand out for the damage they can cause: loss of critical data and downtime, the latter being more harmful the longer it lasts. The likelihood of experiencing these problems increases with the scale of the systems and over time; as years pass, storage environments become more complex and data volumes grow. Without adequate investment, the chances of system failures or human errors rise, leaving companies in a vulnerable position—proving the old adage, “better safe than sorry.”

Understanding these threats is crucial to giving IT system management the importance it deserves. Among the most feared risks are regulatory penalties for non-compliance and, above all, data loss. The latter has been evaluated by EMC in a study, which revealed the following:

• 71% of companies do not feel capable of fully recovering from this type of failure within a reasonable timeframe.
• Data loss costs companies an amount equivalent to 50% of Germany’s GDP in the last year.
• These problems are becoming increasingly common (they have increased 400% in the past year), and 64% of the companies analyzed have experienced them.
• Companies affected by such situations have been down an average of 3 days, primarily impacting revenue and product development.

The study also highlights worrying trends in technological risk management in companies: less than half have a disaster recovery plan, a figure that drops to 6% when considering increasingly widespread trends like big data, cloud, and mobility.

The Five Most Common IT System Management Mistakes

The magazine Todo Pyme recently published the most frequent IT system management errors, which can help companies anticipate potential issues and prepare for them. They are:

1. Lack of documentation and backup procedures.
2. Performing backups incorrectly (without testing and validation).
3. Insufficient investment in infrastructure, updates, and security.
4. Non-compliance with security policies, daily controls, and failure to update security patches.
5. Routinely deleting data without control.

If a company loses critical data, it is advisable to contact a trusted data recovery company. However, as usual, it is better to take preventive measures to avoid such situations—something that is always cheaper and spares the stress and potential additional problems that can arise from data loss.