What Type of Data Do Construction Companies Need to Back Up?

Construction companies are always on the road — moving from building site to building site while communicating with dozens of stakeholders during any given stage of development. That means the typical construction company has a massive fleet of remote employees and an extensive network of third-party vendors sharing documents, data, and information from offsite locations to keep projects moving forward.

Any misstep that causes the inability to access data — like accidental data deletion — can add hours in administrative tasks and cost construction companies a considerable amount of money.

That’s why all construction companies need to understand what type of data is essential to back up and why.

What Type of Data do Construction Companies Need to Back Up?

From the initial bid to labor-intensive blueprints to third-party vendor communication, the amount of information a construction company is responsible for managing can be surprising:

• Blueprints
• Project measurements
• Availability of materials
• Construction plans
• Project timelines
• Budgets
• Client information
• Personally identifiable information
• Vendor information

Losing any piece of the data mentioned above could halt a project entirely, cause friction between clients, and cost a construction company time and money. Research shows that data loss can cost U.S. businesses an average of $7,900 per minute.

Shared Responsibility and Construction Companies Data Backup

Many construction companies realize the importance of easily accessible data. They have moved from storing information on file servers by investing in cloud-based services like Microsoft 365 or G Suite for business collaboration.

For example, it’s common for firms to communicate information like building material availability through SharePoint so vendors and employees can collaborate and monitor projects. This mission-critical data is essential to the completion of a construction project.

What many construction companies don’t realize is that easily accessible data can also mean easily corrupted data. Microsoft 365 and G Suite can’t always protect data from outside threats.

Microsoft 365 and G Suite operate from a shared responsibility model. This means that the vendors are responsible for some – but not all – forms of data loss. Vendors like Microsoft and Google take responsibility for the recovery of data when it’s lost due to things like natural disasters that affect their data centers, hardware or software failures on their part, power outages, operating system errors, etc. However, when it comes to human error or malicious actors, the individual company is responsible – not the vendor.

That means construction companies using Microsoft 365 and G Suite are responsible for protecting their data from:

• Human error (due to malicious activity or innocuous accidents)
• Misconfigured workflows
• Hackers
• Malware, such as ransomware

To learn more about shared responsibility, and data backup, consider these resources:

• The Shared Responsibility Model: Microsoft Office 365 Backup Gaps
• Office 365 Backup: 7 Things You Need to Know
• The Complete Guide to Office 365 Security

Even More Reasons to Back Up Data for Construction Companies

In addition to having extra protection and corporate support to recover items for remote workers and vendors if data is lost, backing up data will also assist construction companies in the following ways:

• Proactive against cyber threats: Because of its growing reliance on technology, construction companies are becoming bigger targets for hackers looking to gain a financial or strategic advantage. For example, companies that use building information modeling (BIM) software to share building plans with engineers, architects, and general and subcontractors are at risk. Because BIM systems contain building plans and other project data files, hackers will use malware to target construction companies and CAD programs.
• Streamline communication and productivity: By collaborating via cloud-based services, it’s easier to keep in touch with employees on the ground. And by protecting information within cloud-based services with an automated backup service, you can give your small IT teams more time and ability to focus on business-growing tasks.
• Comprehensive protection: Businesses rely on a wealth of data, especially with many organizations working remotely. Protect more than just the files and folders in your SaaS applications, but also collaboration tools like Teams conversations, calendars, and contacts.

Finding a backup option to protect data like building measurements, invoices, and client information is critical to protect a construction company’s revenue, reputation, and productivity.

Backupify provides enterprises with easy to use cloud-to-cloud backup. To learn more about how Backupify can help construction companies stay organized, protected, and cost-effective try a free demo, today!