In Part One, Marilyn Bryce, cloud-based specialist and the founder of Zen Cloud Solution, shared a true experience and cautionary tale, which shows the real power of the cloud in a crisis.
We asked Marilyn to share the key lessons she learned from this unfortunate event – so we can help other businesses who may not yet be on the cloud.
1. Keep all wages on the cloud
Despite the fire, Marilyn’s clients still had compliance deadlines to meet, such as BAS which was due soon after the fire. To complete these records, Marilyn’s clients manually recreated the wages records on memory, based on what they paid their staff – since these records were mostly paper based.
“It is very much like a jigsaw where my clients have to piece the information back together from scratch,” she says.
2. Keep your diary online
By keeping a paper diary, Marilyn’s clients have no record of contact details or upcoming appointments to now refer to.
“It got to the point where they couldn’t even notify people that they were unable to attend an event because their paper diary had been destroyed.”
3. Have insurance but stay realistic
Insurance is invaluable and essential, but keep realistic expectations around its benefits.
“As good as insurance is, it’s never going to fully resolve this kind of situation,” says Marilyn.
“Yes, it will replace my client’s equipment and other losses, but it can’t get back all of those financial records that are now gone forever.”
4. Stay secure on the cloud
The issue of security can be a concern for those who are not familiar with the cloud, says Marilyn.
“Security is definitely something people mention as a reason for choosing not to go onto the cloud,” she says. “But security these days is really good.
“In fact, I always say to people that your data is more secure on the cloud than on your hard drive – the story of this fire is just one example of this.”
5. A life lesson
The last word goes to Marilyn, who wants as many businesses to learn from this experience as possible.
“As much as we like to think that life is going to go on the same day by day, the reality is that disaster can strike at any time.
“There are so many cloud solutions available these days. They can save you a world of pain.
“I do end up with a few war stories in my line of work,” she continues. “Unfortunately this will be one of the stories that I will share if a client thinks they don’t need to go on the cloud. This story provides the best possible – and worst possible – example of why businesses need to go on the cloud if they’re not already.
“The risk in not going on the cloud is too great to ignore, as experienced by my clients. It was the little things as much as the big things that were impacted by the fire. The loss of their income overnight is just the tip of it all.”
Read the backstory on this experience.
The post Part Two: Lessons learned from a crisis off the cloud appeared first on Xero Blog.
Source: Xero
