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Data Protection underpins key objectives for SMBs

Data Protection underpins key objectives for SMBs

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are accelerating their digital transformation journeys, adopting cloud technologies and AI to drive agility, scalability, and operational efficiency. Yet as the adoption of new technologies accelerates, so too does the exposure to a broadening spectrum of risks.

From ransomware and insider threats to misconfigurations in cloud infrastructure, the need to secure data and ensure its operational continuity is more than a technical requirement. It is a strategic business imperative.

 

Insights from the Future of Operations 2025 study show that SMBs are not simply investing in cybersecurity for compliance’s sake.

Around 77% rank improvements in security and privacy as their top IT priority, and more than 60% plan to increase cybersecurity investments over the next 24 months.

These decisions are tightly aligned with business objectives, such as reducing enterprise and IT risk, safeguarding customer trust, and ensuring operational continuity.

Partners that can connect these business outcomes to tangible data protection solutions are well positioned to capture significant opportunities.

Data Protection Foundations

Data Protection Foundations

1. Rethinking Backup

For many SMBs, the journey toward comprehensive data protection begins with backups, but the landscape of threats and operational complexity demands a more integrated approach. Data must be secured, classified, monitored, and recoverable—all while supporting regulatory compliance and business continuity.

Take the challenge of ransomware, for example. A backup without verification or immutability offers limited assurance. Simply storing a copy of data is not enough because ransomware can encrypt or corrupt files faster than a manual or unverified backup process can detect.

Without automated verification processes, there is no certainty that backups are actually recoverable when disaster strikes. Likewise, without immutable storage that ensures backup files cannot be altered or deleted, malware or even accidental misconfiguration can compromise backup copies, rendering them useless.

 

 

Only by combining verified, immutable backups with secure recovery can SMBs ensure that their critical data can be fully restored, and operations quickly resumed.

By integrating solutions like Veeam Backup & Replication, SMBs can ensure application-consistent backups across virtual, physical, and cloud environments, with capabilities such as Instant VM Recovery for fast recovery, automated backup verification through SureBackup and secure recovery by using Secure Restore.

When combined with immutable cloud storage solutions such as those offered by Wasabi, these backups are better safeguarded against tampering, creating a resilient foundation for recovery.

This is where a partner’s expertise becomes critical, not only in implementing technical solutions but also in orchestrating services that translate into measurable business value.

2. Data Governance

Data protection is more than backups. It’s also about the ongoing governance required to mitigate risk and threats. Data classification and labelling create the foundation upon which many other policies and controls rest.

Many SMBs struggle with inconsistent, siloed, or unstructured data, and lack the governance frameworks necessary to reduce the risk of accidental leaks, insider threats, or regulatory compliance failures.
This can impact other parts of a customer’s broader technology strategy, including AI adoption readiness. In fact, 42% of businesses surveyed in the Future of Operations study noted that accessing, cleaning, and preparing data for AI workloads in cloud environments is a persistent challenge.

Partners can address this challenge with a range of tools including:

  • Microsoft Purview: deployed to help organisations classify and label sensitive data.
  • Netwrix: provides data discovery, access auditing, permission management, and change monitoring.

Combined, they provide visibility into who is accessing critical information, where sensitive data resides, and how it is being used.

 

This enables SMB customers to address governance gaps while reducing insider and compliance risk.

  • AvePoint Cloud Governance: also complements Purview by automating retention schedules, monitoring compliance, and generating actionable insights across SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive.
  • Acronis Cyber Protect: as SMBs embrace hybrid cloud infrastructures and AI-enabled tools, solutions that unify backup, recovery, and AI-driven malware protection can offer additional resilience against ransomware and system failures.

Using these tools for data classification, sensitivity labelling, and automated enforcement of Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies can help SMBs to establish structure and visibility across their data assets, whether in Microsoft 365 applications or hybrid cloud environments.

Partners can wrap these into a cohesive managed service offering that integrates classification, policy enforcement, compliance monitoring, and AI-readiness into a single, strategic solution.

3. Insider Threats

Whilst external attacks get the headlines, data-related risks are just as likely to come from inside an organisation.

Whether malicious or unintentional, insider threats cannot be overlooked in a complete Data Protection strategy.

SMBs are increasingly aware of this fact, which may explain the 40% that intend to adopt Human Risk Management solutions between now and the end of 2027*.

The most advanced of these offerings from vendors like uSecure provide cybersecurity awareness training, behavioural analytics and actionable alerts to help SMBs monitor user behaviour and enforce security policies effectively.

 

To complement behavioural monitoring, visibility into what users are actually doing with data across IT environments is critical. This is where solutions like Netwrix Auditor can be deployed to continuously track who accessed or modified sensitive files, which systems were impacted, and when changes occurred, creating an auditable trail of activity.

By combining uSecure’s behavioural analytics with Netwrix Auditor’s detailed activity logs, partners can provide SMBs with a complete view of insider risk, detect anomalies early, and respond proactively, rather than waiting for a breach or compliance issue to appear.

Integrating these tools into a broader data protection service line can address the full spectrum of insider and external threats, progressing data protection and security from reactive measures to proactive strategies.

Get your Data Protection practice underway, with Crayon

Get your Data Protection practice underway, with Crayon

Framing data protection as a strategic enabler is about taking the customer conversation simple backups and compliance checklists to deliver a service that safeguards data assets. The right data protection strategy can directly contribute to how your SMB clients achieve their business objectives, reduce risk, and build trust with their own customers.

Data protection is an underlying but often hidden requirement for most businesses. By drawing out how data protection plays into broader business and IT objectives, partners can strengthen relationships, expand service portfolios, and demonstrate tangible value that goes beyond infrastructure.

The building blocks for strong data protection foundations are all available through Crayon. We back our partners with an in-house team of cybersecurity and continuity experts that can help partners to explore options for:

  • End-to-end backup and continuity services using Veeam, Acronis, and Wasabi to provide SMBs with immutable, application-consistent backups and tested recovery capabilities.
  • Integrated data governance and classification solutions using tools such as Microsoft Purview and AvePoint to enforce retention policies, compliance, and secure collaboration in cloud environments.
  • Insider risk and threat detection offerings by combining uSecure behavioural analytics with Netwrix auditing to provide monitoring and reporting that supports both security and business objectives.
  • Bundled advisory and assessment services that leverage Crayon’s through-partner services including Cloud Security Assessments, Azure Risk Mitigation Assessments, and Essential Eight Assessments to identify gaps and recommend tailored data protection strategies.
  • AI-enabled cybersecurity tools as part of SMB digital transformation, highlighting how AI can automate monitoring, reduce risk exposure, and optimise operational efficiency.
Up Next!

Up Next!

Insider Risk: Managing the threat within.

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