What is remote data back up?

It’s essentially an insurance policy for your company’s day-to-day and organisational information. As you work, your data is sent over a secure line to a protected databank, and can be retrieved in part or in whole, at a later date.

You have a 1 in 25 chance of having your laptop stolen, broken or destroyed, every year.

No matter how careful you are, it can and does still happen. When an MI5 agent’s laptop was stolen in 2009, the counterintelligence agency assured the public that the data was encrypted. Aside from password protecting and backing up data, it’s a good lesson to use a virtual private network (VPN). The laptop would act as a terminal, not holding vital data as it would securely log-in to the company’s network after authentication.

50 per cent of critical corporate data is stored unprotected on desktops and laptops.

Without password protection or even encryption of the data, the possibilities of damage aren’t just caused by undercover spies and petty thieves, but users on a network with access to files in the common drives.

The cost and time to recover a typical SME’s data.

One Megabyte (MB) is about 500 pages of text. With this in mind, think of the costs:
19 days and £10,700 to recreate just 20 MB of lost sales data
21 days and £12,000 to recreate just 20 MB of lost accounting data
42 days and £61,000 to recreate just 20 MB of lost engineering data

10 years later and 500 times larger…

Did you know your computer stores 500 times more data compared to 10 years ago? This increased capacity amplifies the impact of data loss. If your company uses computers and servers older than five years old, with today’s demands on the hard drive and CPU, the chances of disk failure are higher.

Only 34 per cent of companies actually test their tape backup.

Of the 34 per cent of companies that test their tape backup, 45 per cent find failures in recovering data. Think of the 66 per cent of companies that have never tested the system they trust to recover their company from disaster. When was the last time you checked tape drive?

60 per cent of SMEs collapse after losing their data.

According to a recent report by the National Computer Security Association, within six months, 60 per cent of SMEs dissolve after permanently losing their data. It’s a sad and avoidable statistic that can be combatted with a disaster recovery / business continuity plan.

Only one third of companies have a disaster recovery plan.

Does your company have one? It should form part of your systems and training process within the company. You can start today by jotting down the following considerations: how can the company continue to operate without data (do you have backup, printouts, etc?); what information is essential and what can be replaced?; how much money does the company lose every day it’s down?; How can you decrease the likelihood of a disaster (how often is the equipment checked and tested)? What steps should you take to resume business as normal after a flood, server failure, etc? Remember, essential data is more than just documents and spreadsheets. Think of the configuration settings, user names, passwords, serial codes and licenses, to name a few.

Tape backup went out with Windows 98.

It’s widely agreed by businesses to be unreliable, prone to failure and not secure. Added to this, how often is the tape changed, duplicated for contingency, taken off site, stored in a secure place, password protected and tested? An automated off-site online backup system also removes the chances of human errors.

66 per cent of small businesses are worried about their disaster recovery plan.

The 66 per cent of small businesses that have a disaster recovery plan and data backup are worried that it has significant vulnerabilities. The concerns include equipment reliability, security of data, and staff. It’s not wise to make one person responsible for the entire recovery of your IT infrastructure. If they were to leave or go on holiday, it would cost your company a lot in wasted time and money.

22 per cent of computer users would like to back up their data.

22 per cent of computer users would like to backup their data and won’t get around to it. With over 17years experience in writing disaster recovery plans for our clients, we know the best time to back up your data will always be now.

Research supplied by On Line Computing

There are about 1.8 million business electricity customers on the UK mainland that are classed as neither residential nor heavy industrial. Of theses, hotels and B&Bs are the most cost-conscious when it comes to their business energy bills. In fact, providers of accommodation are three-and-a-half times more likely than the average business to switch supplier, having topped a list of 100,000 companies that have shopped around throughout 2009 to compare business electricity and/or business gas prices.

The list, worked out proportionately for each business type, also ranks pubs, bars and restaurants in the top three, just after wholesale premises. Other savvy business types include: manufacturers, post offices, printers and membership/sports organisations. The latter group includes clubs such as British Legions, Scout groups, community centres and other not-for profit organisations – all treated as business premises in the eyes of the energy suppliers.

Rank              Business Type                   Switching Likelihood

1                      Hotels / B&Bs                                 x3.5

2                      Wholesalers                                   x3.3

3                      Pubs, Bars & Restaurants            x2.7

4=                   Manufacturers                                 x2.6

4=                   Post Offices                                      x2.6

6                      Printers                                             x2.5

7                      Membership & Sports                    x2.3

8                      Engineering                                     x1.8

9                      Churches                                         x1.7

10=                 Hairdressers                                     x1.6

10=                 Dry Cleaners                                    x1.6

Further evidence suggests that businesses that have recently changed hands are also among the most common types to switch. A ‘change of tenancy’ usually means the energy supplier to the previous occupier will charge the new business out-of-contract, or ‘deemed’, rates which are significantly higher than average.

Here’s how one typical hospitality business has managed to save £3,000 this year following its discovery that it was being charged out-of-contract for its business electricity and business gas.

‘The George’ is a traditional coaching inn set in the heart of the village of Silsoe, Bedfordshire, close to places of interest such as Woburn and convenient for Luton Airport. Accommodation is available in the form of six letting rooms on a bed and breakfast basis. Owner Sue Goldsmith’s New Year resolution was to do something about lowering her business energy bills which had crept up to a total of £10,000 for electricity and gas combined.

Sue was being charged out-of-contact by both her gas and electricity suppliers and that these rates – 16.5p/unit for business electricity and 3.5p/unit for business gas – were much higher than rates normally available. Sue went for in-contract rates of 9.8p/unit for electricity and 2.5p/unit for gas. Because Sue was not in an existing contract with her suppliers she was able to immediately accept. Based on its energy consumption this year, The George has saved at least £2,000 on electricity and £1,000 on gas, bringing the annual energy bill down to a much more manageable £7,000.

Click here to see if you can get cheaper business energy

Accepting card payments online is an increasingly important source of revenue for small firms but many business owners have little or no experience of the contractual processes that can be involved.

Further, entrepreneurs who do take online card payments are left paying the price of fraud if supposedly secure payment systems are breached. During the past month the Forum’s member helpline has seen a notable increase in calls about payment processing fraud.

In order to prevent large losses by spotting potential fraudulent activities early, the Forum’s adviser on merchant services, Richard Bradley of Accept Cards Ltd, urged businesses to put in place regular processes scrutinising orders using statistical information provided by online payment providers.

“Minimising credit card fraud takes time but, above all, it is important to acquire an e-commerce payment gateway that is secure, using supplementary security modules provided by the major credit card companies,” he said.

“Basically, these two features require an additional password to be entered along with the credit card details of the cardholder. Fraudsters will usually have the name, address and credit card number only so using payment gateways that support these can be an effective way of minimising risk.”

Mr Bradley said that many business owners do not fully understand the processes involved in taking secure online card payments or realise that they can be left to cover the cost of fraud.

“Card fraud is a bit of a minefield, particularly with card-not-present transactions,” he added. “In order to combat it, e-commerce merchants must first understand why and how fraudulent transactions take place.

“A credit card fraud is a transaction where an e-commerce merchant is unaware of the fact that a placed order will not be paid for by the cardholder. Typically, credit card information is gained illegally, for example by being stolen or traded, and the fraudsters then use it to order merchandise or services under false names.

“As soon as the original cardholder receives a statement from the issuing bank, a chargeback is issued and the e-Commerce merchant has to refund all the expenses, and cover the hassle by paying a chargeback fee.”

Forum member Stuart Mayhew is the Managing Director of North Leicester Motorcycles, a motorcycle dealer in Coalville, Leicestershire. He said his business takes approximately 90% of all payments via cards.

“I’m appalled that card suppliers are allowed to retrospectively snatch back payments,” said Mr Mayhew. “If you apply for authorisation and get it and the money is in your bank it’s just terrible that they can come back and say ‘sorry, we shouldn’t have authorised that but we are taking the money back’.”

Greg Smith is also a member of the Forum. His firm Fag Machines Ltd, which is based in Manchester and has offices in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, and Southend-on-Sea, Essex, lost £243,000 after his card payment provider removed the money from his account following a fraud. He had put in place the provider’s security system.

“We made it clear that any payments we take are card holder not present and were told that it would be entirely our risk,” said Mr Smith “I think the security checks are as good as non-existent – we’re charged 30p per transaction as well. I understand that other providers use some of that fee for fraud protection so any information and advice about alternative providers is obviously welcome.

“There is definitely a need because more and more businesses have to trade via the internet and we’re forced to take on card processing facilities. The banks say they are the best thing since sliced bread and then say it’s not their problem when something goes wrong.”

Another member of the Forum, Brian Murphy, of Buckinghamshire-based electricity company Pulsar Developments, said that the most security conscious firms have no guarantee of being covered in the event of fraud, even when the cardholder is present when payments are made.

“I asked the provider if they would guarantee that I would be paid in the event of a fraud, providing I had carried out all the security checks required,” said Mr Murphy “After about three days, the answer that came back was ‘no’. These lenders are selling a system that they are not prepared to stand by.”

He added: “It also applies to debit cards. As far as I am aware, none of them provide a guarantee of payment yet reserve the right to pass back the charges, at their discretion, if fraud takes place. That is not my problem, but a problem with their system. Unfortunately, they won’t volunteer any of this information easily to their business customers.”

Phillip Monks

The number of complaints from small businesses about bank loans, has rocketed by 119 per cent in the last 12 months says new bank Aldermore.

496 complaints were made to the Financial Ombudsman (FOS) by small businesses about their bank loans or overdrafts over the last year compared to 226 complaints in the previous 12 months.

Aldermore says that these complaints are likely to be just the tip of the iceberg as only businesses with an annual turnover of less than €2 million euros (approximately £1.8 million) and fewer than 10 employees can complain to the FOS.

Aldermore says that the figures prove that there is rapidly growing discontent amongst small businesses over their treatment by the big banks.

Phillip Monks, CEO of Aldermore said: “Small businesses that we talk to actually feel betrayed when their businesses is running fine but the bank still decides they are not going to renew their loan facility.

“Another complaint we hear from companies is that the bank is going to renew their loan facility but only if they pay a huge arrangement fee – a fee they were never asked for when they first took the loan out.

“Some banks do that knowing the customer might be too worried to shop around.”

“The big banks aren’t happy to admit but their balance sheets are under strain and they are having to knock back perfectly good customers.”

Net lending to UK businesses fell by £3.2billion in Q1 2010. Gross lending to businesses has fallen by 38.8 per cent in the same period, £43.3billion in Q1 2009 to just £26.5billion in Q1 2010.

The data obtained by Aldermore also reveals that the number of complaints made against all financial services providers by small businesses has rocketed by 43 per cent in the last 12 months from 3252 in 2008/09 to 4656 in 2009/10.

John Walker

Expanding the current loan scheme for small businesses and providing incentives for firms to green their buildings are just two of the measures that Government must look at in order to achieve the UK’s tough carbon emission reduction targets, according to a new report from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) today.

The UK is expected to reduce its carbon emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 and the report, ‘Making sense of going green – small businesses and low carbon economy’, looks at the many opportunities which will allow small businesses to play their part.

The FSB believes that to get small business owners to proactively embrace energy efficiency, the Government needs to make going green economically viable. While many small businesses understand the benefits of green investment, the upfront cost is a huge disincentive.

Currently, small firms can access a zero per cent loan scheme for energy efficient equipment which the FSB urges the Government to reform and expand. The scheme allows firms to ‘pay as you save’ so firms can realise a genuine cost saving through energy efficiency, without having to make an upfront cost.

With 47 per cent of the UK’s carbon emissions from buildings there is an urgent need to engage with the private sector to tackle this problem. Furthermore, with 44 per cent of small businesses renting their business premises, many for less than five years, neither the landlord nor the business would see the benefit of making the building as environmentally friendly as possible. The FSB believes this can be done by:

• Incentivising private sector providers (banks, energy or construction companies) to pay the upfront costs of major building energy efficiency upgrades
• Guaranteeing ‘pay as you save’ repayments through energy bills – by linking the responsibility of repayment to the building would help overcome the landlord/tenant divide
• Supporting new business owners to green their buildings by encouraging firms in the worst G-rated buildings to take steps to move to an F-rating
• Not penalising those who increase their rateable value through greening their premises by waiving the increased business rates

John Walker, national chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, said:

“The need to cut carbon emissions and the predicted increase in the cost of energy over the coming decade means that the move to a low carbon economy is more of an economic imperative than ever.

“In order to achieve the tough targets set by the Government, it must ensure that it makes economic sense for the UK’s 4.8 million small firms to go green. Small businesses can play a huge part in the UK’s fight against climate change and we urge the Government to harness this potential when it publishes its Energy Bill, expected later this Parliament.

“If the correct policies are put in place now, then small businesses will have the potential to significantly reduce carbon emissions while also delivering the substantial economic growth that the UK economy desperately needs.”

Mike Childs, Friends of the Earth’s head of climate, said: “As this report sets out, small businesses have much to gain from cutting their emissions – insulating offices and producing clean energy will save thousands on fuel bills, and there’s going to be plenty of new job opportunities as loft-laggers, roofers and technicians are needed to improve the UK’s woefully inefficient buildings.

“Increasing zero-interest loans and more ambitious incentives for green energy for businesses would make going green more financially rewarding, but businesses also need certainty about what will be expected of them in the years ahead – which means getting regulations and taxation right.

“The Government’s immediate priority should be to set all areas Local Carbon Budgets, encouraging councils and businesses to work together to cut emissions, save energy and transform the places in which we live and work.

With over 12,000 (12,050) real estate insolvencies, this is nearly double that of the second most affected sector – construction, at 7,184. Wholesale and retail are third with 6,077 and manufacturing fourth with 4,664 – all measured from the second quarter 2008 to the end of the fourth quarter 2009.

R3′s president Steven Law commented: “The decline in real estate massively outstrips that in any other sector. Clearly there was an oversupply when the recession took hold and, as people and businesses became less inclined to move, development projects could not be sold on.

“The real estate industry was the first key sector to be hit by the recession, and had its worst time one quarter before (Q4 2008) all the other main sectors. It is important to see these figures in context – with over 1 million enterprises, compared to just over 500,000 in the wholesale and retail industry, real estate is the largest sector, a factor in pushing insolvency numbers higher.”

When insolvencies are viewed as a proportion of the total number of enterprises in each industry:

• Hotels and restaurants top the list with an insolvency rate of 1.7 per cent
• Manufacturing is second at 1.6 per cent
• Real estate comes in fifth at 1.1 per cent

Steven Law concluded: “The findings indicate that the pain has been evenly spread, looking at these percentages. Hotels and restaurants have had the toughest time as a sector with close to two in every hundred becoming insolvent during the recession, due to their dependence on consumer spend. The manufacturing industry has also been hit very hard, but traditionally is one of the first sectors to recover.

“As a result of low interest rates and HMRC’s Time To Pay scheme, corporate insolvency numbers have started to come down this year. However, it will take until the end of 2011 before we know if there is an ‘insolvency lag’ still to work its way through. This ‘lag’ has been a typical feature of past recessions when insolvencies rise during a recovery as creditors stand to achieve greater returns and weakened businesses have used up their reserves to stay afloat.”

Even a small incident or power cut lasting only a few minutes could potentially prove costly for business owners.

UK consumers spend £5 billion on frozen food every year, with caterers using a further £2.5 billion of frozen goods. Small businesses, including grocers, petrol station owners and newsagents all rely heavily on fridges and freezers to store goods on site.

It is crucial for business owners to have and maintain back-up generators for all fridges and freezers, in order to prevent goods from being ruined if the main electricity supply is cut or damaged in any way.

To reduce the risk of having a large fridge or freezer related loss, business owners should:

• install and maintain back-up generators;
• install temperature controls and alarms with remote signalling to inform the owner that the unit is gaining or losing temperature.  Alarms are available to ensure temperature range is sufficient for the type of stock being stored;
• if practical, keep a spare storage fridge or freezer to transfer goods into in the event of a problem;
• train all staff how to respond in the event of a refrigeration unit breaking, including how to start the back up generator; and
• determine at what stage of defrosting stock is considered beyond use.

David Greaves, SME trading director at RSA, said, “Businesses need to take precautions, especially during the hot summer months to ensure they are maintaining all electrical equipment on their premises. If a fridge or freezer breaks down, they may have to throw away stock and then replace it all. Following RSA’s risk assessment guidelines could save small businesses significant unnecessary cost.”

Designed to meet the needs of small wholesale, manufacturing and warehousing businesses, it offers multiple covers under one package including property damage, business interruption and liability. It is one of the first products of its kind in the SME insurance industry.

The product is well suited to a wide range of industries, particularly clothing manufacturers, printers, metalworkers, warehouse employees, woodworkers and manufacturers of paper-based products. It provides cover for businesses with a turnover of up to £5 million and up to five premises.

Its flexibility means customers can choose and pay only for the covers and limits that they require.

David Greaves, SME trading director at RSA, said: “This new small business combined insurance offering offers the flexibility and tailored approach that small businesses need. We are committed to providing the best range of products for our customers and constantly review our offering to make sure we are at the forefront of the SME sector.”

Vince Cable

The Reducing Regulation Committee discussed its fundamentally different approach to regulation and began its major review of all regulations in the pipeline.

The Committee has the power to send burdensome red tape back to departments and also guarantees that all other options have been considered before more regulations are introduced.

Vince Cable said: “As the deputy prime minister said, we need to change the balance of power away from the state and back to individuals, businesses and communities. For too long, there has been a misplaced notion that Government’s job is to regulate. That is not the case. Regulation should be the last resort.

“This committee, along with the new “challenge group”, will help change the culture of Government and find new ways of solving problems, reducing the red tape that is strangling enterprise.

“We need businesses to drive the growth our economy needs, not be tied up with form filling, and the Government is determined to do all it can to make that happen.”

Policy chairman at the Federation of Small Businesses Mike Cherry welcomed the move: “Small businesses want to grow, but are stifled by red tape and excessive legislation, with 33 per cent of FSB members citing regulation as the biggest obstacle to growth in 2009.

“We have seen similar initiatives from previous administrations and we hope that the Government puts the needs of the 4.8 million small businesses in the UK first.”

SmartPay, which has been piloted during 2010,will work by giving organisations access to one single payment processing system to use across markets that can be tailored to provide a range of language and currency settings dependent on where the customer is paying from.

Commenting on the upcoming launch, Paul Cook, managing director of global payment acceptance at Barclaycard said “Barclaycard SmartPay will make it easy for businesses which operate across the EU to accept all types of payments online.”

When it launches, Barclaycard SmartPay will protect customers with a wide range of built-in fraud and risk tools, be PCI DSS compliant, and will appeal to merchants in key online sectors such as gaming, retail and travel.

Barclaycard SmartPay is planned to launch in Summer 2010.