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I N D U S T R Y I N S I G H T / J A N D U K E
e USA felt the brunt of the world's three costliest natural disasters in
2018 with damages totaling more than $46 billion. e deadly Camp
Fire in California was number one, with Hurricanes Michael and
Florence coming in second and third place. ose disasters may have
monopolized the headlines, but there are so many more homes and
businesses destroyed each year by tornadoes, flooding, and fires.
With storm season right around the corner,
many firms in the hurricane belt spend the
first quarter of each year testing their business
continuity/disaster-recovery plan (BCP/DR). All
too often, however, firms assume they are in a
"safe zone" and fail to adequately plan, prepare,
and test.
e reality is that no firm is in a "safe zone."
Natural disasters themselves are not necessarily
what will put your business in a risky situation.
ese are the top causes of data loss or downtime
during such events:
» Hardware failure (45%)
» Power loss (35%)
» Software failure (34%)
» Data corruption (24%)
» External security breaches (23%)
» Accidental user error (20%)
e real costs associated with such data loss
or downtime include:
» Reputational risk: Your clients rely on you
to be operational and available. Incurring a
significant outage implies a lack of planning
and lack of proper infrastructure.
» Loss of productivity: If your payroll is
$200,000 per month, every business day
of downtime could cost you approximately
$11,500.
» Legal risk: ere are critical functions that
must be performed within your practice.
Certain tasks have an extremely high level
of risk associated with them if you should
miss even one (military search, hearing
attendance, foreclosure sale attendance, etc.).
While there are various statistics available on
the subject, some studies indicate that 90% of
companies without an effective disaster-recovery
plan who suffer a major data disaster are out of
business within one year.
As servicers prepare for another season of natural
disasters, cloud computing can provide them with a
backup that won't fail.
