Businesses are increasingly interested in controlling costs related to services that were traditionally performed by internal employees. They are also looking to save costs related to hardware and software necessary to business operations. Accordingly, companies are reviewing availability of hosted or cloud solutions for software and hardware availability, network monitoring, accounting services, human resources services, and many others.

Cost of services plays a big part for most companies considering outsourcing a portion of business operations. Counsel for businesses that are considering hosted or cloud services arrangements should encourage the business teams to look past the costs to some of the business continuity risks both during the agreement and after one of the parties terminates the agreement.

While there may be many other risks in a hosted or cloud relationship, the ones that have the highest impact on business continuity include availability, accessibility, data loss and recovery, escrow, acquisitions and divestitures, and continuity after termination.