Hurricane Season: Cloud Communications Provides Shelter from the Storm

Hurricane season is upon us, meaning we are all at Mother Nature’s mercy. But just as homeowners can take steps to “storm proof” their residence, business owners can prepare for disaster as well.

 If you haven’t given much thought to the coming storm season, consider these stats:

• Of the 60,000 to 100,000 small businesses negatively affected by Hurricane Sandy, up to 30 percent are estimated to have failed as a direct result of the storm.

• The median cost of downtime from a small business affected by an extreme weather event is $3,000 per day 

• One-third of small business owners report they have been personally affected by extreme weather, and 57 percent believe extreme weather events are an urgent problem 

• Ninety percent of small businesses spend less than one day per month preparing and maintaining risk management plans.

Fortunately, cloud communications can help small companies like yours avoid having a weather disaster turn into a business calamity. Because the system is maintained by the vendor through the Internet, a storm that would knock an on-premise system offline won’t cripple a cloud-based system. As companies around you are scrambling for a way to stay in touch with colleagues and customers, you remain productive until the storm clears and the sun shines again.   

Clouds rolling in across the sky often signify a coming storm, but for communications, the cloud represents uptime and sunny skies ahead. Mother Nature is free to wreak all the havoc she wants this hurricane season—if you are prepared, it won’t make any difference.