The term "business continuity" became widely known during the COVID-19 pandemic as a reminder of the importance of contingency plans for unexpected events. Although the worst of the pandemic is over, the need for continuity planning is still very much relevant.
Continuity—a business's level of readiness to maintain critical functions after an emergency or disruption—is critical to every organization. Today, most companies have some kind of continuity solution for traditional IT data. However, many still don't have one for SaaS applications. This is mainly due to a misunderstanding of responsibility.
Companies have a long history of managing their own physical servers, so it’s not a big leap to protect the data in these systems. When it comes to SaaS applications, however, there is a common belief that data security and continuity are solely on the vendor. This overlooks the shared responsibility model, which dictates that while the SaaS provider is responsible for ensuring platform availability and security, data protection remains the customer's responsibility.
But that’s not the only reason why having a continuity solution for SaaS data is important. Let’s look at it through the lens of Salesforce, one of the world’s biggest SaaS providers and a platform we support at Own.
A Growing Reliance on Data
Organizations are increasingly investing in and relying on Salesforce. This increased reliance also means a higher level of risk. With more users, customizations, and integrations in place, the platform becomes more complex, making it easier for a single wrong action to cause serious damage, such as corrupting or deleting vital data.
Sensitivity on the Rise
The amount and sensitivity of your Salesforce data are skyrocketing. The default access settings, which permit "everyone to edit everything," are becoming a liability. Controlling permissions manually for thousands of users, integrations, and customizations takes months and is a luxury that most admins cannot afford.
The Challenges of DIY Data Protection
As we outlined, the shared responsibility model requires the customer to manage three important tasks: controlling access to data, detecting data anomalies, and recovering from data loss. The problem is that most Salesforce admins are not security experts and must rely on the SaaS vendor for support.
While Salesforce offers various resources and tools to help admins maintain a secure environment, the platform doesn’t understand your data, users, or third-party integrations. It doesn’t know what is sensitive, what is at risk, and who should be allowed to edit what.
There are other notable limitations, too:
- Salesforce doesn’t provide any context to understand how data classification relates to permissions.
- If something is amiss with your data, Salesforce has no risk identification, alerting, or remediation guidance or capabilities for when users, customizations, or integrations put data at risk.
- When it comes to restoring data, Salesforce’s native export options only capture weekly snapshots, leaving you vulnerable to hourly or daily data loss.
The High Cost of Inaction
Continuity planning is often ignored or delayed due to our natural tendency to avoid thinking of the worst possible scenario. However, not taking action can lead to serious consequences such as data breaches, corruption, and loss. These can negatively impact your ability to serve customers, hinder important deals, and disrupt critical processes.
There is also a significant opportunity cost associated with inaction. Your admin can spend time manually searching for corrupted data, and every hour of downtime can result in lost revenue.
Depending on your industry, there’s also the issue of compliance. With the increased digitization, cyberattacks and data breaches have become more frequent. As a result, regulatory bodies have expanded their focus on restoration and recovery, emphasizing the importance of business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) planning, with a specific focus on data resiliency.
Several regulations highlight this importance, such as the EU Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), which places a strong emphasis on resiliency, and the recently updated New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) cybersecurity regulation, which outlines minimum requirements for a BCDR plan for financial services companies.
Ensure Business Continuity with Own
Own's solution for business continuity empowers you to rapidly recover from data disasters and prevent them in the first place.
With Own, you can::
- Recover data fast: Quickly restore lost or corrupted data.
- Proactively assess risk: Identify critical data and potential vulnerabilities.
- Reduce the risk of data loss: Mitigate the chances of breaches, corruption, and loss.
- Respond swiftly: Take immediate action when data is at risk.
IDC estimates that Own enables customers to reduce data recovery time by 71% and makes data recovery teams 37% more efficient. Don't let an avoidable data disaster hamper your business. Ensure continuity and peace of mind with Own. Download our datasheet or check out our website to learn more.
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