Many small businesses in IT are not optimising storage solutions, according to a recent report by Buffalo Technology, also discovering in a number of cases that this data is in jeopardy.

Steve Chase, a business development manager at Iomega, explained that the amount of data that such companies are generating is growing more by the day and, in turn, could become harder to manage, as well as ensuring that it remains in safe hands.

In regards to the mobile aspect of this data, he continued: "There's a definite growth in the amount of data any small business is generating. They are typically looking for ways to be more efficient in the processing of that data."

He explained that a lot of it was down to awareness in a company of such procedures as encryption, which can make sure it is only seen by certain people and not leaked into the wider world.

The same Buffalo Technology report also discovered that 34 per cent of small businesses in IT admitted to losing a company laptop.

In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were guaranteed response times and allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues.