By Kate Mollet, regional manager for Africa at Veeam 

Organisations are aware of the strategic and competitive importance of gaining more control and reliability over their IT systems, protecting and managing their data, and proactively improving strategies.

However, the 2019 Veeam Cloud Data Management report indicates that businesses have experienced five unplanned outages over the past 12 months, each lasting an average length of 65 minutes. These are scary statistics especially when data is such a valuable resource and when users expect an always-on service that works, highlighting the need for Cloud Data Management. 

The report surveyed business and IT decision-makers in 13 countries and highlights that the impact of these outages includes loss of customer confidence, damage to brand integrity, and loss of employee confidence. Almost one-third (32%) of the respondents see the loss of consumer confidence as the most concerning potential impact. 

Data availability and recovery are critical to business success, especially when an outage occurs. Therefore, Cloud Data Management is essential. This means that data is always available across the business, is centrally managed and controlled, and located where it will deliver the most value to an organisation. 

Not only will Cloud Data Management ensure the quick recovery of data should an outage take place, it will also benefit the organisation when deploying digital initiatives. In order to embrace the power of technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and the Internet of Things (IoT), reliable data is required. 

Furthermore, these strategies will ensure that the recovery process is also able to protect personal information so that the company remains compliant while protecting the organisation and its processes from any security threats such as malware or ransomware. 

Amongst the businesses making the most of Cloud Data Management, there were four common components: Cloud, Capabilities, Culture and Confidence. 

• Cloud: 77% of respondents use software-as-a-service (SaaS), 51% use cloud for back-up, and 44% use disaster-recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS), citing reliability, flexibility and data security as their top three reasons for doing so.

• Capabilities: 91% of organisations view improving employees’ digital skills as vital to their success. 

• Culture: 69% agree that company culture needs to become more open and accepting as they digitally transform, while 97% of respondents agree that leadership styles must evolve. 

• Confidence: Confidence increases as businesses progress on their digital journey, with only 25% reporting total confidence in their capability to meet digital challenges. 

By optimising these competencies, businesses can lay the foundations to becoming a more  responsive business. 

Organisations have to start investing in Cloud Data Management to handle and analyse data in real-time in an increasingly competitive environment, all the while ensuring quick recovery and protection of data should downtime take place. Implementing this will improve customer confidence and brand integrity.