5 Data Management Mistakes to Avoid for Small Businesses

Business and personal data is critical for most businesses in the modern era and data management mistakes can cost you a fortune. The average cost of a data breach in the United States is $8.19 million.

Could your business afford a loss of this magnitude? If you’re a small business, the answer is almost certainly not. 

Yet what do data management mistakes look like? In this guide, we’re going to take a look at crucial mistakes that your small business needs to avoid in 2020.

Read on and learn how to keep your business safe and secure.

1. Not Backing Your Files Up

Perhaps the most basic of all data management mistakes can be found in companies that don’t back up their data. If you don’t back up your files, what will you do if you suffer a data loss or are infected by ransomware?

The truth is, you will lose your data. Potentially thousands of hours of work could be lost if you don’t back them up. 

Your company needs a robust backup schedule: back up your files at least once a week and preferably, every day. These backups shouldn’t be on the same network as your other files, in case of malware infection.

Back up files to secure cloud storage or a different server that’s not connected to your main network.

2. Not Wiping Drives Before Recycling Computers

Data destruction and computer recycling should go hand in hand, but for some companies, this is not so. If you’re planning to get rid of old machines, you should securely wipe the drives before recycling or selling your computers.

If you don’t do this, there’s a not-insignificant chance that someone could steal your data before your computers are recycled. 

3. Not Keeping Track Of Who Has Access to Your Data

A good proportion of data breaches are insider attacks. This is a serious concern for security professionals and it should be for you too.

Employees should not be allowed access to all of your data stack. This dramatically increases the likelihood of an insider attack. Instead, only give your employees access to the data they need to do their jobs.

4. Keeping Unhelpful Data

Data can help your company grow but one of the biggest data management mistakes preventing this is not screening the data that you collect. Is it all useful or do some have no practical application?

You don’t have unlimited space. You should only be storing data that has a practical purpose or can help your company in some way.

5. Leaving Data Management to One Department

Every aspect of your company can make use of data on some level. Sales can use it to help them close, marketing can use it to find what approaches work best, management can see whether they are hitting their targets.

Don’t leave data to the IT department. Everyone should use it to help achieve more.

Don’t Make These Data Management Mistakes

The widespread use of data is still quite new in business but it can make a world of difference to your success. Don’t make these data management mistakes and you’ll be well on the way to using it well.

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