According to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, 70% of small businesses that have a major data loss go out of business within a year.

They fail not because of a flaw in the product or service they offer, but because the business was not properly managed from the IT side.

Paragon Software Group (PSG) - a leader in data backup, disaster recovery, and data migration solutions since 1994 - released survey results concerning small and medium-sized businesses’ (SMBs) IT management practices, including preferred methods of data backup. 22% of SMBs surveyed revealed that prior to purchasing Paragon Hard Disk Manager 12 Business, they were losing critical business information, which had a significant impact on their businesses. Many respondents indicated that inadequate or non-existent backup measures not only affected their revenues but also partner relations and brand reputation.

The survey further showed that:

• 29.41% had no IT administrators in-house or a possibility to hire one;

• 19.23% looked for data management tools to handle all data maintenance on site and from a single interface, with minimal involvement;
• 23.53% backed up data manually;
• 76.47% backed up data automatically;
• 50% preferred to store data physically and virtually;
• 20% did not conduct daily backups;
• 42.86% of those who do not back up daily indicated that the reason is that it's not an efficient use of their time;
• 21.54% said reliability is the most important factor in data backup tools.

“Paragon’s survey reinforces what we are seeing – that 41.18% of small businesses do not have dedicated IT staff,” commented Miro Milos, Director of Channel Sales at Paragon Software. “SMBs need an affordable and reliable data management and maintenance tool to manage data and prevent any data loss. Paragon Software Group specialises in providing the best hard disk maintenance, backup and recovery software tools that could be easily installed and managed by firms with a limited or no IT staff.”

The online survey was conducted by Paragon Software Group between September 25, 2013, and October 9, 2013. All Paragon Hard Disk Manager 12 Business users were invited to participate and 23,83% responded. To learn more about the survey, visit http://www.paragon-software.com/survey_results.html.