Every business needs a disaster recovery plan, according to a brand new report.

In a recent study for the New York Times, it was stressed that the idea of developing a disaster recovery plan can seem both tedious and time-consuming, with many entrepreneurs choosing to go without one for these reasons.

However, the newspaper emphasised that some steps should be taken, so long as a company did something.

Karin Ajmani, the chief executive of US Imaging Network, explained to the newspaper that after September 11th 2001, the obvious necessity for something like disaster recovery became very apparent - something which made the expert consider online data backup.

She continued: "We didn't know where to begin, so I outsourced. We ended up with a really solid plan that everyone in the company is comfortable with. Fortunately, we haven’t needed it yet, but I definitely sleep better now."

According to Information Systems Security, implementation of a disaster recovery system must be closely monitored and regularly tested to ensure it will do the job in the long run.

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.