Why Do You Need Backups?

Introduction

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In this article, we delve into the critical importance of backing up business data, especially for organizations that heavily rely on various online applications, including but not limited to Smartsheet, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Asana, and Monday.com. 

By ensuring that data is backed up, businesses can protect themselves from potential data loss and maintain seamless operations.

Many companies often operate under the assumption that these online SaaS platforms come equipped with inherently robust backup functionality. However, this is not necessarily the case, and many businesses may not fully realize that backups serve additional critical purposes that extend far beyond the inherent limitations of the platform itself. These purposes include ensuring data integrity, facilitating disaster recovery, and meeting regulatory compliance requirements.

This discussion will focus on why backups are especially important for Smartsheet customers.

Why Are Backups Important?

The significance of backups can vary greatly depending on your specific role within an organization. Whether managing backups is directly your responsibility or it falls under the purview of someone else, having a solid understanding of the fundamental concepts is not only beneficial but also essential for effective collaboration and decision-making.

In today's dynamic and ever-evolving business environment, having a reliable and comprehensive backup solution is absolutely essential to effectively safeguard against potential data loss. 

Backups not only enable organizations to recover lost or corrupted data efficiently but also play a crucial role in preventing costly disruptions that can arise from such incidents. Without properly maintained backup copies, businesses may find themselves struggling to reconstruct missing or damaged data—assuming that recovery is even a feasible option in the first place. The importance of a robust backup strategy cannot be overstated, as it serves as a critical safety net in an increasingly data-driven world.

Beyond merely preventing data loss, effective backups significantly enhance security measures and ensure seamless business continuity in the unfortunate event of cyberattacks or natural disasters. Additionally, they play a crucial role in reducing uncertainty by offering a reliable safety net for critical information, allowing organizations to recover quickly and maintain operational stability.

Furthermore, backup solutions are not merely recommended—they are, in fact, mandatory in specific industries. For instance, financial institutions operating within the European Union are required to comply with the new DORA regulations, which make data protection not just a best practice but a legal necessity that must be adhered to rigorously.

Interestingly, numerous studies reveal that human error stands out as a leading cause of data loss across various platforms and organizations. Most relevant for Smartsheet users, this research indicates that an alarming 90% of data breaches and losses can be traced back to human mistakes. Furthermore, a staggering 74% of Americans reported having accidentally deleted important data just in the year 2024 alone, and those troubling numbers continue to rise steadily as more people engage with digital platforms. 

This highlights the critical need for enhanced awareness and better practices to mitigate such risks.

The True Cost of Not Having Backups

Failing to maintain regular data backups can lead to severe financial and operational consequences that can significantly impact a business. These consequences include not only lost productivity and customer dissatisfaction but also potential legal penalties and lasting reputational damage. 

Many businesses operate under the assumption that they won’t experience data loss, but when critical information becomes inaccessible or compromised, the process of recovery—if it is even possible—can be extremely costly and time-consuming, often requiring substantial resources and effort to restore essential operations.

Direct Financial Losses

The financial impact of data loss can be both immediate and substantial, significantly affecting several critical areas of a business:

• Lost revenue – When critical data is missing, it can disrupt operations significantly, resulting in lost sales and missed business opportunities that could have otherwise been captured.
  
• High recovery costs – The process of retrieving lost data from third-party services can be quite expensive, and the costs often vary significantly based on the severity of the incident and the complexity of the recovery efforts required.
• Legal penalties –  In highly regulated industries, the loss of sensitive data can lead to substantial fines, severe legal repercussions, and lasting damage to the company’s reputation.

Indirect Costs & Business Impact

Beyond direct financial losses, the lack of reliable backups can lead to significant and widespread disruption across various operations and processes:

• Customer churn – The loss of valuable customer data significantly erodes trust and confidence among clients, ultimately leading to increased rates of client attrition and dissatisfaction.
• Reputational damage – Public perception significantly deteriorates when businesses undergo data breaches or face extensive financial losses, leading to a decline in customer trust and a negative impact on overall brand image.
• Reduced productivity – Employees often waste valuable time trying to recover or recreate crucial missing data, which significantly hampers their overall efficiency and effectiveness.
• Downtime expenses – System outages resulting from lost data can significantly stall operations, leading to potential costs for companies that could reach thousands, or in some cases, even millions of dollars per hour.

The High Price of Data Loss

Recent studies estimate that the global average cost of a data loss incident can reach an astonishing $3.6 million, with downtime expenses varying widely from $10,000 to as much as $5 million for every single hour. These staggering figures underscore the critical importance of implementing a reliable backup solution; it is not merely a precautionary measure but rather an absolute necessity for any organization aiming to safeguard its data and ensure operational continuity.

This addresses the overall significance of backups—now, let’s delve into some specific scenarios that are especially pertinent to Smartsheet users.

Use Cases for Smartsheet Customers

Use Case 1: Multi-User Collaboration

Smartsheet is specifically designed to facilitate seamless collaboration among multiple users, enabling them to work together on the same sheet at the same time or to submit data efficiently through forms and automation features.

However, human error continues to be the primary cause of data loss across various systems and environments. Accidental deletions, instances of overwritten data, or unintended corruption can—and will—occur over time, often when least expected. Without a well-structured and effective backup strategy in place, recovering lost information can become not only difficult but potentially impossible, leaving individuals and organizations vulnerable to significant data setbacks.

Not only that, but because it is incredibly easy for users of Smartsheet to create highly powerful and impactful business solutions, when the data within those business solutions is either accidentally deleted or overwritten with erroneous or bad data, the consequences can be truly catastrophic for the organization, especially if it does not have a robust and easily accessible backup solution in place to recover from such situations.

Use Case 2: Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity

In today’s complex and ever-evolving business landscape—particularly for medium to large organizations and especially those operating within regulated industries—establishing a comprehensive disaster recovery plan (DRP) and a robust business continuity plan (BCP) has become a standard and essential practice.

While these important initiatives are typically managed by an organization's IT department, it is crucial to recognize that safeguarding Smartsheet data should also be an integral part of these protective measures. Without proper backups in place, critical operational data may be at risk of being lost, which can lead to significant disruptions in workflow and cause extended business downtime.

This observation is particularly relevant for numerous Smartsheet deployments, as the individuals who serve as the owners or sponsors of these Smartsheet implementations are frequently not part of the IT team. Instead, they typically come from various business divisions within small and medium enterprises. These individuals may not fully understand the critical importance of establishing a comprehensive Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) and a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) to ensure the organization can effectively respond to disruptions and maintain operations.

Use Case 3: Regulatory Compliance

Regulatory requirements surrounding data protection are becoming increasingly stringent and complex across a wide range of industries, including financial services, banking, and trading, as regulators seek to enhance consumer privacy and secure sensitive information.

Governments and regulatory bodies increasingly mandate that businesses not only maintain backup copies of essential data outside of Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms such as Smartsheet but also ensure that these backups are secure and accessible. 

Furthermore, companies operating in sectors like healthcare and insurance may face specific requirements to store offline copies of critical data to meet auditing, compliance, and legal discovery obligations effectively. This necessity underscores the importance of robust data management practices in today's regulatory landscape.

All of these use cases are very much aligned with the ways in which Smartsheet is utilized by customers of various sizes and across diverse industries around the world in today's landscape.

What Can You Do?

Now that we’ve thoroughly covered the critical importance of having reliable backups, let’s take a moment to explore a comprehensive solution designed specifically for Smartsheet users—introducing SmartBackup for Smartsheet.

Let’s take a more detailed look at how SmartBackup can effectively address these critical backup use cases and offer a reliable and robust safeguard for all of your important data.

SmartBackup: A Comprehensive Backup Solution

SmartBackup features three essential functions—Backup, Export, and Archive—that seamlessly collaborate to deliver a comprehensive solution for data protection, disaster recovery, and ensuring regulatory compliance.

Unlike typical cloud-based solutions, SmartBackup is designed to be installed on-premises, allowing it to reside within your own unique environment. This setup ensures that your SmartBackup Administrator or IT Team maintains complete control over the system. Moreover, all data is comprehensively secured in strict accordance with your organization's established IT policies and procedures, providing an added layer of protection and compliance.

A significant advantage of SmartBackup lies in its capability to fully automate all backup processes throughout the entire organization. This means that no action is needed from end-users; instead, backup and export functions operate seamlessly in the background. These processes are completely managed by IT administrators, ensuring that data protection is both efficient and reliable without requiring intervention from individual users.

How SmartBackup Addresses Key Use Cases:

• Multi-User Collaboration: The Backup function guarantees that each individual user has their own distinct backup copies, facilitating a swift restoration process for any deleted or corrupted data. This feature is especially vital in a multi-user environment, where numerous users are constantly editing and adding content to shared sheets. Given the collaborative nature of this setting, the likelihood of data deletion or corruption is significantly heightened, making reliable backups essential for maintaining data integrity.
• Disaster Recovery: The Export function effectively and securely saves Smartsheet data outside of the platform, ensuring that IT teams retain full control over all recovery processes. These external copies not only enable IT teams to easily locate the relevant backup files but also facilitate the restoration of this data back to Smartsheet. This allows end users to access, validate, and utilize the information seamlessly, ensuring minimal disruption and maintaining workflow continuity.
• Regulatory Compliance: The integration of Backup and Export offers a robust compliance solution—ensuring that both online backups are readily accessible for immediate retrieval and offline copies are preserved for rigorous adherence to regulatory standards. These external copies not only serve as a safeguard but can also be utilized by the IT team to efficiently search for records in eDiscovery cases. Furthermore, they provide thoroughly auditable records of financial data, which is essential for meeting various financial regulations and compliance requirements.

Next Steps

Every organization implements software and applications in ways that best align with its unique business needs and operational requirements. Given this reality, conducting thorough due diligence and extensive testing before deploying any backup solution is absolutely essential. 

Furthermore, businesses should take the time to develop a comprehensive Backup Plan that clearly outlines all key features, specifications, and requirements for any potential solution they are considering. This proactive approach ensures that the chosen backup solution effectively meets the organization's specific needs and expectations.

To support this process, AcuWorkflow is pleased to offer a complimentary, no-obligation 30-day trial of the complete SmartBackup product. This generous trial period allows you to download, install, and thoroughly test SmartBackup within your own environment, using your own data—all under your full control and supervision—to ensure that it meets your specific needs and requirements effectively.

Get Started Today

To take full advantage of this complimentary trial or to gain further insights about SmartBackup, please visit the SmartBackup solution page on the Smartsheet website by following this link: https://qr1.be/9GZ8

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About AcuWorkflow

Founded in 2020, AcuWorkflow launched SmartBackup, an innovative backup platform tailored specifically for Smartsheet users. As the flagship product of the company, SmartBackup has gained extensive recognition and acclaim, establishing itself as the market leader in its category and setting new standards for backup solutions.

Over the past four years, we have successfully attracted a diverse and expanding global customer base. Our varied clientele now encompasses more than 25 different industries, including exciting emerging sectors such as renewable energy and biotechnology, which continue to grow and evolve.

SmartBackup is the preferred backup solution endorsed by the Smartsheet Sales and Consulting teams.

Our distinctive advantage lies in our ability to access all customer data seamlessly and efficiently. This unique capability empowers us to proactively anticipate backup requirements, skillfully navigate the complexities of Smartsheet's API, and generate near-identical backup copies—an invaluable offering that Smartsheet itself does not currently provide to its users.

As we continually evolve SmartBackup, we are also expanding our product portfolio based on extensive user testing and our growing expertise in the Smartsheet landscape. This commitment to innovation is why we recently launched our second major product, the Highspeed Offloader/Onloader for Smartsheet, commonly referred to as HSO. This powerful tool delivers advanced bulk data-moving capabilities that specifically address significant needs of Smartsheet customers in the European Union, particularly when it comes to transferring their data from the US region to the EU region. In addition to this essential functionality, HSO also offers unique capabilities that benefit all Smartsheet customers around the globe, ensuring a seamless and efficient data management experience for everyone.

For more information please visit our website at www.acuworkflow.com.

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