Disaster recovery is more important than ever, one expert believes.

Simon Kelson, the managing director of Atlanta Technology, told Fresh Business Thinking that it only took an incident such as a flood, storm, fire or other unpreventable things such as the theft of equipment to really bring home the importance of disaster recovery in the workplace.

As a result, businesses must really consider their options in case the worst comes to the worst, otherwise their business could face the end, he continued.

Mr Kelson said: "It's likely that today's uncertain economic environment may make failure more likely but business continuity planning with an emphasis on cash management lets people plan and act rationally, rather than being frightened into investing in expensive in-house solutions."

He highlighted the impressive qualities of online data backups, particularly in their ability to restore systems extremely quickly, highlighting it as a good option to invest in.

The government's Business Link facility is very much behind the adoption of disaster recovery as it is the best way to ensure employees are always paid and the data protection act is adhered to.

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 online backup.