It is often the smallest things that can trip up any business. Keeping a secure backup of the files and databases on your PCs and servers might seem a simple precaution for even the smallest company to take.

But the majority of small businesses do not have the most rudimentary system in place. Even those businesses that think they are covered use outdated backup tapes that can be lost, stolen or corrupted. So when the inevitable happens, the consequences can be disastrous.

The loss of even a small number of financial files, customer database or sales emails can take days or even months to recreate. In some instances, the files can never be recovered. In the meantime, the business' reputation with customers and suppliers is likely to have been permanently damaged. That is precisely why 50% of companies that suffer a major data loss go out of business.

Why do so many businesses have inadequate - or invisible - systems in place? The reason is simple: backing up data is one of those mundane daily tasks that can easily be overlooked. In fact, virtually every other aspect of the business will probably be more pressing than whether your company's data is being backed up properly; until the day there is a major problem.

In the past, finding a better solution for most small companies was either costly or problematic. However, technological advances mean that there are now workable - and cost-effective - solutions available. For larger companies, especially those with more than one office location, data from one server can be copied to a "mirror" server at the other location.

The alternative for smaller enterprises is online backup, where files are automatically encrypted and saved over the internet to a remote server in a secure data centre. One of the key problems of using online backup services in the past was that saving your files over the internet slowed down the speed of your connection for the rest of the business. With newer online backup solutions, this is no longer the case. Better still, the cost of saving your data over the internet has fallen dramatically.

Putting a secure system in place to safeguard your computer files is now affordable for even the smallest of companies and it might just save your business.

Mark MacGregor is chief executive of Connect. For more information see www.totalrecall.co.uk [1]