When was the last time that you gave your big toe some thought? Our guess would be you haven’t, nor will you – unless you accidently bash it on a chair, table, or some other hard object. And then you will become acutely aware of your big toe and how much you do actually use it.

What do toes have to do with anything?

Consider your backups in a similar vein. You don’t really think about them unless the worst happens and your data gets lost or compromised; a laptop is stolen, or your network suffers a ransomware attack.

When did you last check your backup was working? (You do have a backup, right?) And when did you last stop to think about what that backup is backing up?

Most businesses will make provision to get their files backed up: the better backup products will automatically backup and encrypt your data on a regular basis and will allow you to access that data securely from another device should your computer fail for some reason.

So that’s good – all your documents, photos, files, they’re all being backed up.

How about your emails? Who provides those services, and are they backed up? Would you miss them if they were lost forever?

And what about the software packages that you use? Do you have an HR package? Are your accounts with a third party? Do you track your employees? If these software providers were hacked, or went out of business, would that mean that you lost all your data? Can you use that as an excuse, say, to HMRC?

“Sorry guv, all my accounting records have been eaten by the dog.”

IT is a pain – it’s something no business owner, (or very few) wants to have to think about. But your business data is your responsibility – and part of that responsibility is to ensure that you have backups of absolutely everything – and that absolutely everything that is being backed up really is being backed up to somewhere you can still access it when you need it.

You can leave off thinking about your big toe, but you can’t neglect your backups until you ‘stub your toe’ and suddenly realise how useful they would have been……