The Business Dictionary describes downtime as:
“The period which an equipment or machine is not functional or cannot work. It may be due to technical failure, machine adjustment, maintenance, or non-availability of inputs such as materials, labour or power.”
Downtime has a variety of costs that can affect a company, from lost productivity to loss of revenue. Here are some ways your business could be affected by downtime.
Cost of Downtime = Lost Revenue
The cost of downtime can be significant, especially if it results in a loss of revenue. There are many ways that a company can lose revenue due to downtime. For example, if your website is down, customers may go to your competitors’ websites instead. If your manufacturing plant is down, you may not be able to produce products to sell. In addition, if you are unable to process payments, you may lose sales.
Downtime can also have a ripple effect on a company. For example, if you lose productivity due to downtime during your peak hours, there may not be enough staff available for other projects that require additional staffing.
When downtime occurs unexpectedly, it can be difficult to manage any extenuating circumstances that may arise out of the event. Your business will also need to take care of restoring the IT infrastructure and systems so they can function properly again.
The Hidden Costs of Downtime
Small businesses may not think that downtime is a big deal, but the hidden cost of downtime can be significant. For example, if your server goes down, none of your staff will be able to work; our cloud desktop service has redundancy built in with multiple data centre locations and high availability on all connections, which could prevent downtime where a business may not be using a cloud desktop service. For example, if you have a single server on site that fails, that’s downtime that could have been prevented by utilising a cloud desktop service.
In addition, small businesses may not have the resources to handle unexpected downtime. If your systems go down, you may need to hire a consultant to help you get back up and running. This can be costly, and it may take time for your business to recover from the event.
Another example is if you are unable to process payments, your staff may spend time manually creating invoices for customers. In addition, you’ll need to secure a back-up system if you lose productivity due to downtime.
What can Businesses do to Avoid Downtime?
IT failures are an inevitable part of business life. However, there are steps that companies can take to increase their ability to avoid downtime. For example, you should have a backup system in place in case an IT failure does occur. In addition, you should have a plan in place for when your systems go down. This will help your team coordinate to get them back up and running as quickly as possible.
Xenace offer complete outsourced IT solutions to help you and your business get through downtime and other obstacles.
When it comes to downtime, the key is to be prepared. Have a plan in place that covers IT failures and ensure that everyone on your business team understands what they can do to prevent downtime.