How To Backup Your Business Data

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures Article |Backup Business Data|How To Backup Your Business Data

Data backup is a crucial part of protecting your business’s continuity. If your only backup is kept on a single computer or a mobile, and this is then lost or stolen, then your business data will be lost completely. If you have paper copies of your business data, this isn’t adequate data protection. If your business premises were to burn down, or suffer from severe flooding, then the data that you need to carry on your business would be irretrievably lost. Data backup is an important part of any crisis preparedness plan for businesses large and small.

Data Loss

There are lots of ways to potentially lose your business data, and protecting it should be a top concern for your IT. You could lose data due to:

  • A desktop or laptop hard drive crash, or damage to your mobile device, which could render your data unrecoverable
  • Your computer or phone being stolen. Break-ins at businesses are common, and most stolen laptops or desktops are never recovered.
  • Data being accidentally deleted or deliberately deleted by an employee who has been let go.
  • Your computer being hacked by malware
  • Your only storage accounts being hacked
  • A ransomware attack could make your files inaccessible to you until you pay a substantial fee to get back in.

A Data Backup Regime Is An Essential

For proper data protection for your business, you must establish an effective data backup system. These systems should follow these three steps:

  • Backup your business data on a regular basis
  • Create backups on reliable media, such as through Media Duplication Services, or in the cloud
  • If you use media for backups, you must store the devices in a secure, off-site location

A good, simple rule to follow for business data protection is that if losing the data would prevent you from doing business effectively, you need to back it up. Desktop software programs can be reinstalled if they’re lost, but recovering the details of things like transactions or business correspondence is usually impossible if these files are lost in any way, or damaged beyond repair.

Data Archive Vs Data Backup

Most backups are done periodically and are short-term images of data for disaster recovery purposes. Archiving is different, and usually refers to the long-term storage of data that is no longer being regularly used by your business, but can be restored if somebody needs it, for example, data about a former client or a completed project.

Backup Critical Business Data

There are two important steps to successfully backup your business data.

  • Identify the critical data in your business that needs to be backed up
  • Implement backups of this key data on a regular schedule

Your data backup should include all of the files that you have created or modified, so they can be regularly backed up. For a lot of business, this will include everything from accounting files to emails.

To make backing up easier, more and more business applications are now available through the cloud, where you can run automatic backups. However, if you are using desktop (non-browser) applications, then these can be reinstalled from media or downloaded, so you don’t need to back these up.

Cloud Storage

One of the best ways to make your data backup easy is to use online backup services. This is just one of the reasons why cloud computing can be enormously beneficial to small businesses. However, you should keep in mind that cloud services can still be vulnerable to losing your data to problems like hacking or employee sabotage, such as password changes or deletion. To counteract this risk, it is a good idea to take occasional local backups of any data that you store in the cloud.

Local Data Backups

If you choose to save your data locally and are not using cloud storage then you can make the backup process a little more simple by keeping all of the files that you know will need to be archived on a single drive on your computer.

For example, perhaps you need to back up files from accounting, word-processing documents, spreadsheets, emails, and photos. Putting your account program, Microsoft Office, Outlook, and Paintshop Pro all onto a separate drive will make it much easier to achieve all the files that you have created or modified with these programs. All you will then need to do is backup that one drive or folder. Once you have identified the critical data that needs to be archived, all you have to do is install and use a backup software program in order to safely archive your business data on a regular schedule.

It’s a smart idea to backup your data every night. There are lots of different backup software programs on the market that will allow you to set a backup schedule to suit you that will automatically backup all your data for you, without you needing to get involved after the initial setup. Backup software that also zips and encrypts the backup data will help to save on disk space and will increase the security of the data.

You should only keep your data backups on-site if you are able to keep them in a fire-proof, waterproof, indestructible sage. Investing in backup solutions like a tape drive or an external hard drive and religiously sticking to your planned backup schedule won’t help you at all if your data backup copies are then stored in one place, and that place is struck by a disaster like a flood or a fire. To really be secure, you must store your backups off-site. Cloud backup doesn’t completely eliminate this worry but is definitely better than most physical locations for storage.

Some businesses choose to keep their data backups in security boxes at banks. The fee for a security box, if you decide to do this, is usually tax-deductible, which is a bonus to choosing to store your data in this way. Other small business owners choose to keep multiple copies of the backed-up records at the homes of different friends or family members. It doesn’t matter where you choose to store your backups, as long as the place that you choose for storing your business data off-site is secure, and that you have regular access to it.

Online Backup Services

For the ultimate in security, you need to make sure that you always use strong passwords for these online backup services, change those passwords on a regular basis, and ensure that your backed up files have been encrypted. As cloud storage is shared, cloud providers will normally encrypt user data automatically.

USB (Thumb) Drives

USB drives are always being improved and increasing in available capacity, making them ideal for quick data backups. They still don’t have the capacity that external hard drives do, but they do have a fast data transfer rate and are easily portable. You can backup data to a USB drive very easily and take it offsite to a secure location. As they don’t have any moving parts, USB drives also have the advantage of being very reliable.

External Hard Drives

For small businesses, buying and using an external hard drive for data backups is one of the most commonly recommended methods. External hard drives are usually pretty inexpensive compared to tape drive systems. They are also very easy to use. All you need to do is plug in the hard drive into your computer’s USB port. Most external hard drives come with backup software ready to go to help you.

Local Area Network (LAN) Storage

If you have a local area network (LAN), you could choose to also backup your files to another computer or server. However, if the backup machine is kept in the same location, then be aware that it could be vulnerable to being stolen or being damaged by a flood or a fire. To prevent theft from being a risk, you could install the server in a locked cage, cabinet, or closet, and be careful about who has access to it.

Tape Storage

If you have large amounts of data that need to be backed up, or want to make and store regular complete data archives to be stored on a long-term basis, then tape backups are the best option for you. They are very reliable and can store a massive amount of data.

Back It Up Or Risk Losing It

No business should ever run the risk of losing your business data. The best defense against a disaster like this happening to your business is by using a proper data protection plan. If you create a proper backup system that includes regular archiving and backing up your business data on a regular basis and backing it up properly, you will be able to make sure that your business will be able to stand up to whatever problems might come your way, and keep on working and trading successfully. Remember that you can never have too many data backups!

Spend some time identifying what data you need to backup, choose how you want to back it up and how often, and decide where to store your data.

Analytics Are a Must for Business Success

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures Article |Analytics|Analytics Are a Must for Business SuccessBusiness analytics is a process in which businesses improve their operations by using statistical models to analyze data. They compare historical and current data and try to make adjustments where applicable to improve future performance. Business analytics’ first usage was in the late 19th century but did not become standard practice until the 1960s.

Analytics Gives Companies an Edge

Once companies really began to use business analytics, they quickly developed an edge over the competition. There has always been a level of adaptation that companies have made to keep competitive. However, the use of analytics gave companies the ability to look deeper into the data and discover more useful information to improve business.

Gathering statistics and analyzing them to try to find useful information only works if you are collecting the right statistics. It is easy to get bogged down in the wrong information and draw false conclusions from statistical analysis. Any data set taken out of context is likely to lead analysts down a false path. All of the relevant information must be gathered and compared in order for analytics to truly be useful.

New Coke Was Delicious… And Terrible

Gathering a data set in a vacuum can lead to tremendous business blunders. Take one of the biggest marketing failures of all time: New Coke. The blind taste tests conducted by both Pepsi and Coke showed that the majority of people preferred the taste of Pepsi to the taste of Coke.

Then after developing a new formula, Coke ran over 200,000 taste tests. The results showed definitively, that people preferred the flavor of New Coke to both that of old Coke and Pepsi. Then we all know what happened. Consumers hated New Coke and demanded a return of their original beverage. After three months, Coca-Cola Classic made a return, and everyone was happy.

The researchers did not gather all of the relevant information. One of the key pieces of information they overlooked was that people don’t typically only drink a couple of sips of a cola. They usually drink a can or a bottle. Some people drink several cans a day. For many, the sweeter taste of New Coke was not as palatable in large quantities as the original.

They also didn’t gather information about why people drank Coke. Pepsi was working very hard to be the “cool cola”, aiming at taking the youth market. Many of the people who stuck with Coke were about brand loyalty and nostalgia. They liked the beverage they had and were not looking for a change.

Had Coke done a proper analysis of the statistics, they would have looked at who was drinking Coke and why. By doing so, they would not have made such a mistake. Either they would have scrapped the idea of New Coke altogether or offered it as an additional beverage rather than an alternative.

Instead of replacing Coke, if they had continued to sell Coke Classic, but also offered “Coke Youth” to try to pull back some of the consumers they had lost to Pepsi, maybe people would still be drinking Coke Youth today, right alongside Coke Classic.

Sports Analytics

Despite an abundance of usable statistical information, it took a while for sports to follow in the footsteps of business in the use of analytics. Once they started using analytics to improve individual and team performance, however, they began to quickly perfect its usage.

While they may look big, sports organizations are relatively small businesses. Because of this, their analytics departments aren’t nearly as big as big banks or global retailers. As a result, they have to outsource a lot of their analytical needs. This has led to the creation of many sports analytics companies. The use of football analytics software enables these companies to provide needed information to clubs across the league.

One of the best usages of analytics that sports organizations have used, which businesses could greatly benefit from, is the effect of individual performance upon the team. Sports teams are able to assess the potential contributions of players beyond their individual statistics. Some players don’t put up the most impressive numbers but are able to elevate the level of play of those around them.

Some team members, whether in sports or business, are key to the success of the group. They are not valuable because they shine themselves, but because they help everyone around them to impress. Proper use of analytics can help businesses to make these determinations and so much more. The data is all there. It simply needs to be gathered and correctly analyzed in order for your business to thrive.

Developing Performance Measures

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures Article | Developing Performance MeasuresA performance measure is a quantification that provides objective evidence of the degree to which a performance result is occurring over time. There are many definitions of performance measures, but this one accurately and broadly elucidates the meaning of the concept. In long term-projects, even short-term ones, it is imperative to have a system through which results are measurable. For this reason, performance measures are quite necessary.

Specific Advantages of Performance Measures

  • Productivity Increase: One great advantage of having performance measures is that it increases productivity in any given task or project, especially in a team.
  • Setting Standards: Performance measures can be instrumental in setting standards. For instance, by measuring performance, a person would know how much they can achieve over a given period of time. The assessment of this ability can help set the standard the next time the said task is performed in the same organization or a different one.
  • Determining Strength and Weaknesses: In an organization, setting up measures to track the performance of different tasks will help to determine which tasks employees are better at. This is a great way to foster specialization and division of labor; ultimately leading to effectiveness and productivity.
  • Supports Communication: Having metrics to measure performance ensures that individuals in an organization are more transparent and work as a team.

Types of Performance Measures

There are different types of performance measures. All these measures could provide a relatively accurate description of results. They can be categorized into the following: input measures, output measures, outcome measures, efficiency measures, and explanatory information.

  • Input Measures: Input measures comprise the resources consumed by a project such as the money and time spent. For instance, if the employers in a firm work an eight-hour shift daily, it makes up part of the input measures.
  • Output Measures: Output measures can be very clear. They simply depict the amount of work that has been executed as a result of the input. Comparing the present output with the former one can be instrumental in measuring standards and how employers work in different circumstances. Output measures usually consist simply of numerical values.
  • Efficiency Measures: Efficiency is depicted by the amount of work performed compared to the number of resources used in doing the work. It is expressed in units. Efficiency measures are not always very effective because there are usually a lot of factors affecting performance other than the variables involved in efficiency measures
  • Explanatory Information: Explanatory information simply involves other factors that affect the performance of an organization in any given situation. These factors might include environmental factors, incentives, the motivation of workers, etc.

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures Article | Developing Performance MeasuresProcesses and Steps involved in Creating Performance Measures

The process of developing performance measures can involve many steps. Many different experts have propounded several theories to achieving this result. Here are some of the most important activities to engage in to arrive at a reliable measurement of performance in the long run.

1. Collecting Stakeholder Information

The developmental point of collecting performance postulates that the information and opinions of the stakeholders involved in the process are collected. Cambridge Dictionary explicitly defines a stakeholder as a person such as an employee, customer, or citizen who is involved with an organization, society, etc., and therefore has responsibilities towards it and an interest in its success. The list of stakeholders includes the following people:

  • Members of staff at all levels.
  • The customers or clients of the organization. If it is a public office, the information should be collected from the people being served.
  • Policymakers; are the people at the helm of affairs whose decisions affect the running of the organization.
  • The financiers of the service or the organization.
  • The evaluators of the activities of the organization.

This step is necessary because your stakeholders are the people who are most interested in the activities and success of your organization. Their opinions and suggestions are important to the running of the organization. Also, collecting stakeholder information helps you to know what they want from you. Through this, you can streamline your objectives and measure performance according to them.

2. Incorporate Various Types of Performance Measures 

To arrive at a holistic evaluation of the performance of the people/persons in a task, the types of performance measures listed above should be incorporated into your performance measurement. Nevertheless, this depends on a few other factors such as the type of project being executed. For instance, a holistic approach is not paramount if the task being carried out only affects one small unit of the organization.

3. Promote Top Leadership Support 

There is a high tendency that lower-level staff in an organization will not be in support of performance measures. Therefore, the topmost leaders have to regularly encourage the use of performance measures and bring the other staff members on board. If feasible, the leaders should also be subject to performance measures like the mid-level staff and other personnel. This exemplary effort will ensure that other staff members feel more comfortable in the use of performance measures to evaluate their work.

4. Establish Long-term Goals and Objectives 

Goal-setting is arguably the most important part of developing measures. What is the end goal of the project that your organization is involved in? By identifying these, you can develop measures that particularly check for them. Most projects in which performance is measured are usually long term. Hence, it is even more difficult for all the people involved to keep sight of the end goal. This can be made easier by documenting the objectives so that they can be read regularly by all the stakeholders.

Long-term goals can be documented in the form of a mission statement. The mission statement should be documented in clear and concise terms to ensure that all the parties involved understand it.

5. Establish Short Term Goals to Help Attain the Long-Term Goals 

Long-term goals are relative. Achieving long-term goals in some situations could take a few years. Therefore, special attention should be given to short-term goals. Firstly, the short-term goals should be formulated in line with the long-term goals. The achievement of short-term goals regularly by all the people involved in the process builds up to the achievement of the long-term goals. Again, the short-term goals have to be in line with what is hoped to be achieved in the long run.

In setting and matching goals, we can depend on the SMART acronym. SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Professionals from different fields have used this acronym in many different situations and it has proven effective. If your goals fulfill the criteria in the acronym, there is every tendency that it is feasible.

6. Establish Performance Targets 

This is achieved by taking a look at past performances and comparing them to the present. In developing performance measures, it is important to have already set standards. These standards are gotten from previous tasks and projects.

7. Create a Simple Approach 

This step involves the following activities:

  • Ensure that your measures match your goals and objectives.
  • Take all the time needed to perform tasks.
  • Keep the number of measures you use at the lowest.
  • Decide what level of performance defines success.
  • Ensure that you possess enough resources for the project.

Conclusion

Developing performance measures can be very advantageous, especially in the long run. Nonetheless, it is important to ensure that the performance measures we use are effective and result-oriented. Note that the use of performance measures can also have some disadvantages.


About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Tiffany HarperTiffany Harper is an experienced writing guru who’s been working in the B2B sector for several years now. She loves to share her thoughts through blogs and social media. For her love of writing, she also provided some consultation while working with dissertation writing services from Assignment Masters.

Developing Performance Measures

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures Article |Performance Measures|Developing Performance MeasuresIn any industry, businesses pursue profits as a measure of success. However, profits can disguise many variations in effectiveness behind the scenes. In competitive sectors with a confluence of variables, businesses need strategies that reveal their performance over the long term. Without this, businesses will be adrift, lacking in focus or direction whilst their competitors get ahead. Developing performance measures is essential to allow businesses to develop strong strategies and continual performance at the top of their industry.

What Are Performance Indicators?

Performance indicators are deliberately structured measures to gauge your company’s performance in the long-term. Performance measures will have to be curated to the unique environment in which your company operates, the markets you’re operating in and the specific challenges of your sector.

“Once KPIs (key performance indicators) have been identified and constructed, they will help to determine the direction and focus of your business in its finance, operational and strategic objectives,” says Leonard Johnson, a writer at Last Minute Writing and Writinity. “These are key to a business’s continued high performance as well as the contextualization of your company within its sector.” Without KPIs businesses are adrift, lacking a sense of their direction and performance. Let’s take a look at how to effectively develop performance measures.

Identify Outcomes

To have meaningful performance measures, an organization needs a sense of the outcomes it wants to achieve. Rather than using abstract concepts to guide your strategy, find objective results that have clear indicators of success. Make sure that everyone on the team understands how each outcome is being understood as individuals can have radically different interpretations when it comes to identified outcomes.

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures eBook

Compare Measures

Recognizing that there are multiple measures for different outcomes enables you and your organization to select the measures that best express your objectives. “When comparing measures, you should be asking whether results can be measured directly or if you need a secondary measure that indicates performance in certain strategies,” says Jerry Dubose, a KPI expert at Draftbeyond and Research Papers UK. “If results can’t be measured directly, how you assess your performance can be based on the performance of indirect hypotheses that are linked to your outcomes.”

Tailor Measures To Objectives

When selecting the final measures your organization will use as performance indicators, there are a few criteria to consider. Metrics for your performance should be able to answer key questions about the orientation of your organization’s strategic decisions as well as providing actionable information that can guide future strategy. Negative consequences of your measures should be kept to a minimum, such as laborious data collection or incentivizing employee behaviour that “shortcuts” the objective.

Define Targets

Equally as important as selecting accurate performance measures is the process of defining the organizational targets your company needs to achieve. Targets should be aspirational, yet realistic and encourage everyone working in the organization to optimize their performance.

As well as identifying targets, a number of thresholds can be created with different action plans indicated by each. A minimum performance threshold can be as valuable as an aspirational target, or more so, when measuring organizational performance. A traffic light system of red, amber and green target/thresholds can provide a valuable visualization of performance as well as a motivator for when action and strategy needs to adapt.

Document Performance

Lastly, performance as related to defined outcomes needs to be documented. These documents can be issued quarterly and will become valuable for reflection on past performance as well as an indicator of future trajectory. Documentation should be systematic and complete – a data definition table provides an excellent structure for overarching documentation of performance. Software can streamline performance documentation as well as create compact performance reports that will indicate how strategy is performing.

Wrapping Up

Developing performance measures should be a cornerstone of every business looking to secure their future. In a fast-changing world, organizations need to have a strategic approach to development and objective ways to assess their performance, otherwise fluctuations in market environments can catch you out. This approach to developing performance measures, as articulated in the article above, will strengthen your business and enable resilience in the face of an unpredictable world.


About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor |Ronald CainRonald Cain is a tutor at UK Essay Writing Services. He is a professional writer, a blogger, and a contributor to Gum Essays. His passion for communication and organizational strategy has led him to roles which support businesses in achieving selected outcomes and, for Ronald, nothing comes close to the thrill of success in a competitive environment.

How to Develop Performance Measures?

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures Article |Performance Measures|How to Develop Performance Measures?Have you ever thought of improving the quality and productivity of your organization, achieving set goals, and recognizing hard-working employees?

Well, one sure way is by developing the right performance measure.

Organizations often measure employee performance to achieve set goals. Most times, determining how to develop the right Key Performance Measure (KPI) may lead to hassles and failure that might bring unwanted results. However, it is important to develop the KPIs using the right approach as it aids better decision-making, makes employees more responsible for achieving set goals, evaluates the growth of the business better, and manages the employees’ performance better.

Steps to develop performance measures

1.Familiarize with the concept of performance measure/What is KPI?

It is needless to say that the misconception of KPI is a common organizational problem. Organizations need to comprehend what KPI is all about so they can apply it correctly. KPI is not a data collection strategy, nor is it an employee productivity tool.

It is the value of the numeric work input and evidence of the reoccurring performance result. Simply put, KPI refers to the reliable data generated from the efficiency of programs. After a proper understanding of the subject matter, other processes would yield better results.

2. Evaluate the KPI’s Criteria

If your company has existing KPIs, it is advisable to conduct another review on it and select the one that would yield better results based on the performance measurement. However, if you don’t, you should create strategies according to your company’s achievable goals.

The goals must also align with the measures and must be proven to work efficiently, i.e., someone else must have used this plan. The measure must also be understandable, inspirational, and capable of being regularly tracked. Remember to keep the measurements lesser in numbers and detailed.

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures eBook

3. Set Measurable Goals

Your company’s goals should be specific, clear, realistic, and understandable. All this aids an excellent performance measure with meaningful results. Try to make the objectives less action-oriented, vague, and multi-barrelled. Instead, write about intended results with precision, and list your goals separately. Setting up small goals is better for a start.

4. Be Deliberate

While developing your performance measurements, employ the deliberate technique rather than a brainstorming one. Visualize the end, evaluate the potential measures that expose the capability of achieving positive results, and look at the bigger picture. This would allow you to decipher what is being measured and take your stance regardless of the unforeseen circumstances. It should be visible, countable, and measurable.

5. Let your supporters buy-in

Without those who support and understand your performance measure, your KPIs would not get the required attention. To make your KPI meaningful, you have to put them into use. They would fulfill the purpose by building buy-in with those you have been working alongside.

Building buy-in is by creating a measure team and ensuring that they comprehend the problems and how the KPIs work. Also, build an open environment where others can critique and give feedback on the KPIs.

Required characteristics for performance development

Before developing the KPI’s, there are some characteristics an organization should possess; they are:

  • Target An organization aiming for success should have some achievable targets within a specific period. The period may be within six months or annually
  • Measure The measure and the target work together. Measure here may refer to the number of acquired customers for the various products and services. Set a means to achieve the target.
  • Frequency The review of the KPI’s progress should be done regularly. It could be on a monthly or weekly interval depending on the nature of the target
  • Data Discover where your data would come from, as this would boost your progress level. Discovering this would prevent a waste of time.

Conclusion

Developing performance measures is an essential business tool to achieve your organizational goals. It also goes a long way to fulfill other organizational needs like setting realistic goals, recognizing employees’ hard work, timing employees through task timer online, and building a supportive team that understands your business challenges. You can try out our opinion on the steps in developing a performance measure, leave questions on where you need clarification, and tell us about your views.


About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Lori WadeLori Wade is a journalist from Louisville. She is a content writer who has experience in small editions, Lori is now engaged in news and conceptual articles on the topic of business. Time management is critical to career success. That is why she uses the task timer online to stay in the lead at all times. If you need more tips on time management, entrepreneurship, or leadership, you can find her on LinkedIn.