We Didn’t Consider It A Risk…

Do you understand the potential risks of third party developed cloud based CRM systems?

Last week we sent a mailer to our customers discussing the dangers of relying on unprotected third party applications and within minutes of sending it a customer was already on the phone to us.

“I didn’t consider it a risk”

The customer had recently upgraded to a third party hosted CRM system and didn’t realise the potential dangers of storing all their vital client information on a cloud based system with no knowledge of if, or how often their data was backed up and with no contingency plan for if the system failed.

We advised our customer that a SaaS agreement would be the best way to protect their valuable data and would safeguard their business straight away. Unfortunately this is a risk that thousands of businesses never consider.

What would happen to your business if:

Your vendor went into administration - Would you still be able to access your vital client information?

Backups of your data were not created – If you are working with an external hosted provider your data will be held by the vendor and therefore it’s their responsibility to create backups and ensure the security of your data.

The IP of your application was transferred – If you have spent time procuring a certain application, have trained your staff on and depend on an application, you may be reluctant to change if your vendor sells the IP to another provider.

However, should a new provider take over, the fastest way to recoup their investment is to increase the charges to you the customer who depend on the service.

Thankfully, there is a solution, by setting up a SaaS Escrow agreement you can protect your business from these potential risks by creating the provision for regular backups of source code and data to be deposited with an independent 3rd party therefore protecting your business from over reliance on your vendor.

Setting up a legal agreement such as Software Escrow can also protect your existing licence contracts to ensure your costs are not materially increased in the event that IP is transferred.

If you would like to find out more about how a bespoke SaaS solution can protect your business, please get in touch and one of our specialists will get back to you within one business day.

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