SAN JOSE, CA - Too often we read about data breaches outside the fresh industry—I say too often in part because of the frequency of the crime, but also because of how its prevalence can desensitize many to its impacts. While it may seem removed from produce, ZAG Technical Services’ Greg Gatzke recently pointed out to me how this could not be further from the truth.

“Every company is in the cloud today at some level—most likely through time keeping, payroll, and critical business services. Data breaches can take these down and keep it down for any length of time,” the Chief Executive Officer said, pointing out when Kronos experienced a breach that impacted some businesses for weeks. “Unfortunately, while our industry is no exception to the risks, it faces a lot of cost pressure, and security goes directly against cost.”

Greg shared that most at-risk industries, such as banks and technology enterprises, do not face the same cost-inputs and income fluctuations as fresh produce, providing more resources to make digital security a top priority.

“Our industry heavily relies on the cost and time savings technology provides, but security can often be costly. We depend on technological advancements while grappling with the expenses of securing these investments. Understanding security risks and having potential fallbacks is critical, as well as understanding where you stand if a breach does occur,” Greg said.

In fact, he explained, too many leaders are not able to say what a recovery time would look like should a breach, or even a system failure, occur. It is an answer he described as critical to understanding where a company stands and, by proxy, could provide a competitive edge.

“We know the speed in which the industry has to operate, and that if a company cannot fulfill orders based on technology trouble, another will step up to fill the gap. We are so tied, from government criteria to retail transparency expectations, to the real-time and speed of technology that we cannot fall back on paper like other industries that have suffered a breach-related shutdown,” Greg observed.

These are the hard questions ZAG seeks to answer as an insider to the ag industry, offering not just awareness of technology holes, but opportunities to fill them.

“As we are more dependent upon cloud offerings, companies have redundant internet connections in case one goes down. Look at the cloud offerings your company depends on and consider what it looks like if those go down. How will you function?” Greg demonstrated.

If you have read to this point wondering where you stand, ZAG also offers an assessment to either ease or make you aware of your risk.

“What we do as an organization is come in and assess security, potential to recover with an ag focus custom to the company,” Greg shared, explaining what ZAG provides as a credit-score style evaluation of a produce company’s tech security and vulnerability. “Most company owners don’t know how long it would take to recover from a breach, which is an unhealthy position to be in. This is where ZAG can assist. It is every leader’s responsibility to know what the potential recovery looks like.”

From the competitive advantages of being prepared to the greater risk of not having such fail safes in place, my conversation with Greg reminds me of the importance of insurance—you never know when you’ll use it, but you’re deeply grateful for it when you do.