Data plays a crucial role in the business growth and success of any organization, losing which can be a serious problem for businesses of all sizes. Losing data and files means losing out on time as well as money to restore and recover information that is essential to the business. In the Salesforce ecosystem, data loss can occur when Salesforce data is either accidentally deleted or something causes it to become corrupted.
The reasons for data loss can range anywhere from viruses and physical damage to formatting errors which can render the data unreadable to both humans and software. In some instances, this lost information cannot be recovered, making data loss prevention even more essential. This data loss can be caused by many different factors where each poses a unique problem for data recovery. We further discuss the most common causes of data loss:
- Hardware Damages– One of the primary causes behind data loss is hardware malfunction, with the primary perpetrator being the hard drive. Being the most fragile part of systems, hard drive failures amount to nearly 70% of all data loss cases. Of these, 60% are due to mechanical issues while the remaining 40% are a result of human misuse or mishandling.
- Human Error– For a business, accidental human mistakes can result in the unintentional deletion of data and information. Human error also plays an important role in other causes of data loss, including hard drive damage, software corruption, and hard drive formatting.
- Software Corruption– Unexpected software failures can cause serious damage to the Salesforce data. Such failures can corrupt the data and completely derail the business progress, thereby wasting time and losing valuable information.
- Viruses and Malware– In a Salesforce enterprise, computer viruses can steal and delete massive heaps of data, which ultimately brings the business operations to a standstill and destroys the functionality. Whether it’s an email-based attack or a phishing attempt, the virus or malware enters the internal system and can cause serious damage to important data.
- Cyber Attacks– In recent years, hacking and data breaches have become a great hassle for Salesforce enterprises where unauthorized hackers cause serious damage to the company by deleting and stealing any data they wish. If they succeed in gaining sufficient access to the system, they can even damage the entire network processes.
Effect of Data Loss on Salesforce Organizations
Data loss is a major inconvenience that disrupts the day-to-day operations of any data-based Salesforce business. When important data and documents are lost, the business wastes precious time and resources recovering them, usually with no guarantee that the recovered data will be as up-to-date as the data that was lost. The inconvenience of data loss can have even bigger implications for your business when a large amount of data is lost:
- Productivity Disruption– Business productivity is the first thing that suffers in the unfortunate event of data loss no matter what the cause is. The lost data may take many days to recover, if at all it can be recovered, leading to staff downtime and lost productivity. According to studies, companies that can’t resume normal operations within 10 days of a data loss incident are less likely to survive.
- Damage to Business Finances– If the crucial data supporting the business is no longer available, then the organization would be unable to work and generate finances as usual. The business’ finances become even more hindered if there is no backup of the confidential data to work with. Not only this, recovering from data loss may also eliminate the monetary profits that were gained previously.
- Exposure of Confidential Information– When important business data is lost, it can also lead to exposure of confidential business information. If significant customer information is compromised, heavy fines may be levied against the company for failing to comply with the Data Protection Act. The affected organizations can also take legal action against the business.
- Damage to Reputation– In this digital age, the news of any company’s data loss incident travels fast. If the company ends up in the headlines due to this, the negative publicity can be permanently detrimental to the business reputation, which will ultimately hamper future business prospects as well.
- Loss of Customer Loyalty– The customer loyalty is also tarnished after a data security breach, especially if it’s the sensitive client data that is compromised. If the customers can’t trust the company to protect their data, then they may take their business elsewhere. And once the word spreads, it may be an uphill battle to rebuild client relationships and find new clients.
- Permanent Business Failure– In addition to all the above mentioned effects of data loss, in some cases it can also lead to permanent failure of the business, which is probably the worst possible outcome. Each year, a handful of companies shut down operations when it becomes impossible to recover from the combined storm of the financial impacts and hidden costs of data loss.
How to Prevent Such Data Loss
The most effective way to prevent important business data from permanent loss is to back up all the datasets and documents. Backing up data ensures that there is at least one additional copy of all the important data. To make it even more secure and effective, the backups must be stored in a completely separate location to prevent the risk of data loss from physical destruction or theft even further. Such backups should be performed frequently so that minimal data is prone to data breaches.
Regular data backups come in handy when overcoming random hardware malfunctions as they prevent complete data destruction through effective use of external drives and cloud servers. Even human errors can be minimized by properly backing up the documents that are in regular use, either automatically or manually. Regular system backups also help in recovering lost data in the event of malware or virus attacks. Most cyber-attacks can also be neutralized by using proper firewalls and frequently backing up important Salesforce data.
Having explained the importance of a data backup strategy for the Salesforce system, we introduce you to the recently-launched data backup application called DataArchiva Backup. DataArchiva Backup is a simple data backup and recovery application that is tailor-made to support all forms of Salesforce solutions like the Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and other custom-built Salesforce solutions. Using it’s full and incremental data backup services, Salesforce customers can overcome their fear of losing the data.
This highly scalable and customer-friendly application prevents critical business data from all sorts of data security threats and comes with a seamless restoration option as well. Users can easily set up the application themselves and schedule their backups periodically or carry out manual backups whenever they desire. This cost-effective and easy-to-use solution also lets customers view their backup history. Aided with the relatively easy backup and restoration services offered by DataArchiva Backup, businesses can easily meet their data backup requirements.
To know more about the app, please get in touch with us here.
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