A London-based IT services company has claimed that data loss can affect a business financially and harm its reputation.

Businesses should ensure they have "a security policy in place" and recognise the importance of disaster recovery, according to Small Business Computing.

The website Computerworld claims that: "Between 60-90 per cent of companies that don’t have a proactive disaster recovery plan find themselves out of business within 24 months of experiencing a major disaster."

A spokesperson for Small Business Computing states: "Financial losses are the main thing as data is valuable to the business as a whole. This will have a financial impact, and will also impact on the integrity and the reputation of the business. Losing data that is important can breach confidentiality."

This warning follows the government's high profile loss of 25 million HM Revenue and Customs records in November last year.

According to the Boston Computer Network, companies that cannot resume operations within ten days of a disaster hit are unlikely to survive.

New research from Connect found that, on average, it takes businesses that use backup tapes take 11.6 hours to retrieve and restore files. Connect is now recommending that SMEs switch to www.totalrecall.co.uk