Small Business Backup Quote
I was doing some market research the other day and I contacted a well known competitor of the product Carbonite. The company is well regarded and services many financial planning practises and legal firms. I have no doubt they do a great job.
I pretended to be a small business with 10 Gig of data to backup. I said that my back-up would grow over time but that growth would be gradual.
The sales person was very pleasant and sent me a quote that evening. No complaints about the service. The reason why I performed the research was that in my previous life marketing financial planning software to small/medium sized practises, I found many planners didn’t spend up on IT systems nor support. Particularly those that are a one person business. I would assume that they do some sort of backup but I am sure a good portion of them don’t (atleast not regularly enough).
The quote came back at $1600 for the first year and $1300 thereafter at 10 Gig. I wonder how many advisers would spend $1300 pa to have their PC backed up. Many didn’t want to spend half of that on insurance analysis software that helped them sell and earn revenue when markets where better. I also saw an advert from a local tech shop. They promoted a 1 hr service for $110, where they would write scripts so that you could use rotating memory sticks (they ranged from $30 – $140). This quote is more reasonable but still requires manual work and the risk that the memory stick may get lost or fail.
Alternatively they could use something like Carbonite which offers unlimited back-up for $59.95. It’s also automated so once installed they don’t need to touch it again. It will backup all of their emails, spreadsheets, SoAs, and software data files. That’s pretty much all they need.
Just to clarify however, the competitor was a full service provider that a medium and large corporate could use. Whereas Carbonite, has been designed for backing up the PC’s hard drive, not servers etc. For the small business financial adviser who travels to and from his/her clients with their laptop, $59.95 is ideal and a good deal at that. Importantly it’s a good way to get advisers into the discipline of backing up their business PC.
For more info on Carbonite, go to www.carbonite.com.au.
