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Fire preparation

The recent fire that broke out in Greenacres Shopping Centre in Port Elizabeth, severely damaging 26 of the centre’s 85 shops, highlights the importance for all local businesses to ensure they have effective document and records storage systems with reliable backups in place to avoid the loss of critical company information.

Statistics from the UK reveal that 30% of all businesses that suffer from a major fire go out of business within a year, and 70% fail within five years, due to data loss, according to Home Office Computing magazine.

Brett Harris, GM of Metrofile Records Management, Port Elizabeth, a division of Metrofile Holdings, says fire poses one of the biggest threats to any organisation that deals with documents on a daily basis and businesses need to incorporate effective risk management programmes to protect these assets.

Brett Harris

“Failure to securely store and backup data means a company has to rebuild its database from scratch in the event of it being destroyed by a fire. This could take months, or even years, which can have a devastating impact on a business by delaying, hindering or even permanently ceasing productivity.”

He says that should a company have no data storage and recovery plan in place the potential business repercussions include, among others, financial losses, damage to brand reputation, costly litigation, job losses and total business inoperability. “Data is unquantifiable and therefore extremely difficult to insure, making it impossible to recover any financial losses.

“Businesses have two options; onsite or offsite records management. Companies that need immediate access to documents and records have no choice but to store them onsite, the key lies in implementing an effective backup solution and storing the documents in a secure environment that can protect the records from damp, fire and water damage as well as insect infestation. Essential to this solution is effective fire detection systems.”

Harris says offsite records management is becoming increasingly popular due to space constraints of storing records onsite as well as the costs involved with implementing the effective security measures needed to securely store records, including fire detection and prevention.

“Offsite records management entails the storage of company data and information in purpose-built facilities incorporating data protection which involves the securing of a backup data tape in an off-site vault. The location of storage facilities are specifically situated in low-risk areas where exposure to flooding, fires, earthquakes, flight paths or other natural disasters are least probable.”

A combination of both physical and online data backup provides the most comprehensive backup storage system.

“Closure as a result of loss or damage to company data and information is becoming increasingly prevalent, yet this risk is so easily mitigated,” concludes Harris.

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