It is clear that businesses can benefit from electronic document management systems, but it is also worth noting that having a secondary way to access these files is also crucial. Even though many business processes are completed on secure servers, systems can fail during a power outage or data breach. Information technology professionals who consider multiple forms of media storage can be extremely valuable to the company.
One clothing manufacturer in Los Angeles, California, was able to sustain business operations after hearing that one employee stored its files at a facility outside the office even though the company decided to digitize its financial information, according to InfoWorld. One evening, the chief operations officer of the organization reached out to a vendor that specialized in information technology, hoping to find out why its program was wiped out.
It did not take long for Eric Schlissel, the man who helped the clothing company, to realize there were a combination of issues with the system. Information that was supposed to be backed up every night was nowhere to be found. In turn, “all the data files were gone, the database was gone, and the [enterprise resource planning] software was nowhere to be found,” according to Schlissel.
Thankfully, a person within the company’s accounting department did not think that digital interfaces were safe, so the worker took it upon himself to make a paper copy of everything. It took the team six months to put all the documentation back into its ERP system, but the cost of that saved the organization $10 to $12 million.
“It was the most catastrophic IT disaster I’ve ever seen,” Schlissel told the source.
Other IT departments can benefit from an additional document storage security because these situations may be rare, but they can occur at any moment. Hackers and malware practices are becoming increasingly sophisticated and many firms do not have the firewalls and encryption programs to ward off the strongest cyber attacks.