4 real-life examples of SaaS data loss…

Today’s businesses use more SaaS applications than ever. And, as more company data is stored outside the firewall, it becomes ever more possible – and even likely ­- that this data can be lost. According to the guys at the Aberdeen Research Group, as many as one in three businesses have experienced permanent loss of SaaS data – with the majority being caused by user error, malicious intent, or sync errors.

It’s no secret that data loss, even on a small scale, can do serious damage. Of the one in five small and medium businesses who’ve experienced significant data loss, a huge 70% of these businesses literally go out of business within a year of the event.

And while these figures refer to SMB’s, it’s clear that data loss doesn’t discriminate. Many larger, enterprise level businesses have experienced similar headaches when it comes to keeping their data safe.

In this article, we’ll take a look at 4 real life examples of data loss. Fortunately, these companies had the forethought to implement a backup and restore solution for their data before experiencing a major loss, so were able to recover from these incidents without any fuss. For those who don’t choose to protect their company before it’s too late, the consequences can cost weeks, even months, of recovery time and a major hit to both reputation and profit margins.

The Sync Error: AMAG Pharmaceuticals

AMAG is a pharmaceutical company based in Boston with around 300 employees. As a part of the health and pharmaceuticals industry, they’re heavily regulated, and compliance is particularly important.

Their data loss problems began when an HR folder was moved within Google Drive, and didn’t sync correctly. As a result, all files disappeared – including some that weren’t even owned by the user moving the folder. The employee checked the trash bin, recycle bin, and desktop for a copy – but the data was gone.

Luckily, Spanning Backup for  Google Workspace allowed AMAG  to restore all files in just a matter of clicks, exactly as they were and where they were before.

Without a backup and restore solution, the data is this important folder would have been lost forever, putting AMAG’s compliance with regulations surrounding data availability and backup in jeopardy.

Learn more about AMAG in the video below.

The Departing Employee – Alzheimer’s Association

You’ve probably heard of the Alzheimer’s Association and the awesome work they do in trying to eradicate this terrible disease. The charity has over 2,800 employees and volunteers working to enhance care and support, as well as advancing research.

As with any large organization, an element of staff turnover is inevitable. And the Alzheimer’s Association faced a problem when one departing employee deleted all his email on his way out the door. Whether this was an attempt to be helpful, or to erase personal emails he didn’t want others in the organization to access, it had dire consequences. Amongst the deleted emails were messages that were critical to a major fundraising initiative. Needless to say, losing this kind of data within a nonprofit organization can have catastrophic consequences, especially since charity organizations have to do so much with so few resources. Every pledge, every contact, every potential volunteer is critical. .

Again, fortunately, the data was able to be recovered using Spanning Backup for Google Workspace. Specifically, the ‘cross user restore’ function saved the day. This allowed  allowed the organization’s Google Workspace admin to not only restore the email chain, but to place it in the inbox of the departing employee’s successor.

Find out more about this story here!

The Helpful User – Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH)

London-based marketing agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty – BBH – works with some of the world’s leading brands, with a team of over 1,100 employees and volunteers. Their data loss story revolves around a misguided user ‘cleaning up’ client folders in an effort to be helpful – unwittingly causing the loss of over 1,000 folders and files, which were also deleted from the user’s trash file.

BBH used a backup solution (hint: it wasn’t Spanning!) to restore this data, which was only partially successful. This helps to illustrate an important distinction in the quality of backup solutions. Backup is only as good as the restore that comes with it. In the BBH case, while data was restored, the file and folder metadata was not, which meant that the restored data wasn’t organized correctly; the upshot of this was that the file system essentially needed to be rebuilt and repopulated with the restored data. When selecting a backup provider, be sure to check the granularity of the restore. The more metadata, sharing settings, and customizations, etc. that can be restored, the less work you will need to do to get back to work.  You can find out more about this in our White Paper, Five Essential Restore Capabilities for Cloud Application Data.

The Data Integration Mistake: Manticore Technology

Manticore – which merged with Sales Engine International back in 2012 – was a marketing automation platform that was integrated with Salesforce.com. Their problem was that, when this initial integration happened, it often resulted in the overwriting of Salesforce lead data.

This could be resolved by Manticore customers in two ways. One was to manually import the data from their weekly Salesforce export file. This process involved downloading a CSV file, which would need to be stored and secured on-premise, and then manually importing this data back into Salesforce. Of course, this was a time-consuming and laborious manual process which inherently left open the potential for more human error mistakes.

The other solution was to contract with Salesforce to bring data back from tape. The minimum outlay for this option would be $10,000, and there would be no guarantees about exactly whether the data would be restored correctly, or when the restore would be completed.

Recognizing Manticore’s (and so many other businesses’) need, Spanning set out to make the data recovery process inside Salesforce far less costly and time consuming, as well as more user-friendly., With in-app Salesforce backup and on-page restore,data can be quickly, accurately and inexpensively restored with just a few clicks. Find out more in our White Paper, 3 Ways to Restore Salesforce Data.

Take the ‘loss’ out of ‘data loss!’

At Spanning, we know that the cloud is integral to how you do business. But, for all its benefits, the potential for data loss is nonetheless still very real. It’s important to mitigate that risk with a quick, secure, and effective backup solution. It’s going to save you a lot of headaches in the long run!

Check out more Spanning success stories right here!