What Does Network Downtime Really Cost You?

Let’s imagine that you arrive at your office one morning with a full slate of tasks ahead of you, but everything is down. Computers are unresponsive. Phones are silent. The internet is a ghost town. Your business has come to a grinding halt – victim of an IT outage.

This is just the kind of scenario every business owner fears, but beyond the initial frustration are expenses you may not immediately see. IT downtime carries hidden costs that can significantly impact your bottom line. Let's expose the true price of IT outages.

What are the consequences of network downtime?

There are many consequences, but they all boil down to one thing: lost revenue. Let’s look at the components that lead to this result due to network downtime.

Productivity Loss

This is the first thing that happens. Your workforce is immediately sidelined as soon as IT systems go down. Sales can't be processed; products can’t be shipped; unanswered emails pile up; deadlines are missed; clients and customers are put on edge. Every minute of downtime translates to lost productivity and therefore lost revenue and delayed projects.

Lost Trust and Frustration

When you suffer an IT outage, it isn't just an internal inconvenience. It spreads outward, impacting your customers. What happens when an online store experiences downtime during a peak sales period? This not only leads to lost sales but also damages customer trust. When frustrated customers can't place orders or access their accounts, many will simply purchase their items elsewhere – and they may not come back once your issue is resolved.

Damage to Your Brand and Reputation

Once you fail your customers due to an IT outage, your brand image becomes tarnished. Customers expect businesses to be reliable and accessible. Frequent downtime paints a picture of inefficiency and unpreparedness. In today's competitive landscape, a damaged reputation can be difficult to repair, and customers soon flee.

Unexpected Costs

Looking past the loss of productivity and sales, there are other costs that may not even be on your radar yet. These are the hidden costs you will need to consider:

Loss of Employee Morale

Employees can certainly feel demoralized when they’re stuck waiting for systems to come online. With that frustration they can also lose motivation. If they feel like they can’t get anything done, they wonder why they should bother. Frequent downtime chips away at employees’ loyalty causing some to jump ship for more tech stability.

The Cost of Emergency Repairs

An IT outage immediately throws you into emergency mode, and if you have settled for cheaper, less proficient IT support, this can be costly and time-consuming. If you don’t have a managed IT services agreement in place, these costs grow quickly. Don’t get trapped into having to choose an IT provider in the middle of a crisis. THAT is yet another catastrophe waiting to happen.

Corruption or Loss of Data

Due to the severity and nature of the outage, you can easily suffer data loss or corruption. This can mean very expensive recovery efforts. Forensic data recovery is not cheap, and if the data can’t be recovered, it can mean hours of staff time entering data. Worker hours are dollars spent – just to get you to where you were before the outage.

Your Compliances Suffer

In general, every business operates under some sort of compliance regulations, but depending on your type of enterprise, you may have an industry-specific regulatory compliances which might be at risk during an outage. If data is compromised, this could lead to fines and penalties, which aren’t cheap.

The Full Cost Will Undoubtedly Be More Than You Think

Sorry, but it’s homework time! Arriving at the true cost of IT downtime depends on your industry, size, and the duration of the outage. Studies estimate the average cost of IT downtime to be in the thousands of dollars per hour. For larger businesses, this figure can skyrocket into the millions.

A study by the Ponemon Institute estimates the average IT downtime cost from $5,600 to nearly $9,000 per minute.

How do you ensure business continuity?

There’s a reason we repeat old sayings like “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” – it’s because they’re true. Here’s some good news: most IT downtime is preventable. Here's how to be proactive:

Pay for Good IT: Open that dusty coin purse and invest in a Reliable IT Infrastructure with a top-notch MSP (Managed Services Provider). Focus on high-quality hardware and software. Look for a proven track record of reliability.

Think about it: You never see anyone building their ‘dream house’ out of playing cards.

Continuous System Maintenance: You need to ensure that your system keeps running. It’s not like a toy top, where you let it spin and wait for it to fall over. Schedule regular maintenance to identify and address potential issues. This keeps them from snowballing into outages. If you are smart and use a good Managed Services Provider (MSP), they will perform this task without being asked, as it keeps their own costs low.

Create a Backup and Disaster Recovery Plan: Have a thorough data backup and recovery plan in place to mitigate data loss in case of an outage. It should outline steps to take in case of an outage, ensuring a swift and efficient recovery.

Invest in Security Awareness Training: Educate employees on cybersecurity best practices. Human error is the cause of over 90% of network data breaches, and ongoing training can minimize this risk.

Spend the Money to Protect Your Own Uptime!

It will be well worth it to take on the time and expense of building business resilience. IT downtime is a threat every business faces, but by understanding the true cost and taking proactive measures, you can reduce the risk. Remember, downtime isn't just an inconvenience. It's a financial burden. It also has the potential to damage your reputation and customer relationships.

Focus on cybersecurity and invest in the above preventative measures. This will help ensure that your business stays up and running no matter what catastrophe occurs – from data breaches to natural disasters. Every minute counts when it comes to technology operating smoothly.