How secure is your data?
Last week I made a costly mistake, and caused £500 worth of damage to my laptop. All down to a piece of blue tack!
But why do I say only £500?
Well, it certainly could have been a lot worse. Although in the end I decided not to send my laptop back to Sony for the £500 repair, but to replace with new, I did end up with no computer for a few days, and not able to retrieve files from the old one. So what would have happened if….
- What if I’d had no other means of accessing my emails and lost potential business as a result?
- What if I’d had nothing backed up?
- What if all my client details had been on the computer, rather than on a web based system?
- What if I had decided to get it repaired and been without a computer for several weeks?
Thankfully none of these applied, and I have an excellent relationship with my IT support supplier, who had me up and running again in no time at all.
So what’s this got to do with running a hospitality business?
Well, just ask yourself if you are putting any of your data at risk?
- Do you have back up of all your documents, emails and contacts?
- Are your customer details secure?
- What provision do you have if you lose internet access? Can you still take bookings and payments?
- Are you dependant on any single piece of equipment to run your business on a day to day basis?
- What is your relationship like with your key suppliers?
- Do you get your IT equipment regularly serviced in the same way as you would service other equipment?
- How secure is your sensitive data (and the equipment it is held on)?
See business management tools for more resources to support hotels.