More Salesforce teams than ever are aware that they need to backup their Salesforce data, with 86% of teams reporting that they now have a backup solution. However, it can sometimes be a challenge to get support and budget from the wider business for this backup spend.
The best way to get buy-in is to put together a business case for backup; let’s look at the four key components of building a compelling case.
1. The Cost of Salesforce Data Loss
The price of data loss is skyrocketing, and a recent study from the Ponemon Institute came out highlighting that the average cost of a data loss incident for a single business averaged at $2.5 million in 2016.
You’ll be more likely to win over budget for backup by emphasizing the three three key costs associated with a Salesforce data loss incident:
- Compliance Fines: You could be hit with hefty fines if your data loss breaches either mandatory or voluntary regulations. With the cost of a single GDPR fine now sitting as high as 10 million euros, the financial impact of compliance fines alone can be catastrophic for a business.
- Business Reputation: Data loss can undermine your market placement and customer trust, making it harder to attract and retain customers.
- Loss of Sales: Data incidents can cause the business to lose leads and contacts due to downtime or lost data. For the sales and marketing teams, the impact of an incident like this regularly stretches through multiple quarters.
2. The Benefits of a Backup Solution
A backup solution is about more than just protecting against the financial impact of data loss – there are huge business benefits to getting backup in place. You’ll be more efficient and reduce costs on your auditing and compliance processes, as secure backup helps you to trace changes made to your data and prove that you’re handling it securely.
A robust backup solution will also allow you to maximize the ROI of Salesforce by promoting agile development. Your Salesforce development team will have the confidence they need to release with high frequency knowing that production data is kept safe in a backup.
3. Choosing a Backup Solution
With the costs of Salesforce data loss and the benefits of backup in mind, you’ll be ready to evaluate different backup solutions. Salesforce has a paid backup and restore tool, but most teams choose a backup solution that’s separate from the platform they’re backing up. So there are two other types of backup solution available: a third-party vendor or a self-built tool.
Self-built tools do give you complete control over what you’re designing, allowing you to only build what you think your Salesforce team will need. However, the implementation cost of a self-built tool can be far higher as you’ll need to pay outright for the data hosting (be that cloud-based or local) and ask for developer and compliance staff time.
By contrast, buying from a third-party vendor will allow you to have backup set up far faster. The hosting costs will generally be included in the backup subscription, and you’ll have access to further tools should you need more from the backup offering.
4. The Costs of a Backup Solution
Whether you’re trying to choose between a self-built backup tool or a vendor, or picking a specific backup solution from the various offerings, considering the following costs can help you come to a decision:
- Third-Party Subscription: If you’re using a third-party vendor, you’ll need to consider the subscription cost. These tend to be tiered, with costs varying based on the size of the org or number of users that you’re trying to provide backup for.
- Data Hosting: With a self-built backup, and some third-party vendors, you’ll need to factor in the cost of data hosting alongside the cost of the backup solution. This can be expensive, as secure servers come at a premium.
- Staff Training: You’ll also want to consider the costs of staff upskilling, if you’re implementing backup for the first time or making changes to your process. Ensuring that your Salesforce team has a proper understanding of your backup process will help you to create a robust disaster recovery plan and meet compliance expectations.
- Scalability: As your Salesforce instance grows, you’ll likely need to scale your backup process. A self-built tool may fail to cope with this increased demand and require a complete overhaul, creating a huge potential cost of in-house backup tools. By contrast, a third-party vendor should allow you to move up the tiers of their pricing system, giving you increased backup support as your demands grow.
Summary
These pointers should be a starting point for creating a business case for Salesforce backup and beginning to evaluate the various solutions on the market. For a detailed walkthrough of the costs, benefits and evaluation of Salesforce backup check out our free and ungated whitepaper.