‘Downtime’ is the dreaded expression for businesses, which indicates any number of IT problems but always results in a loss of profit. Whether it’s a server failure or the result of a cyber hack, even a relatively short amount of downtime can have serious consequences for businesses. Are you doing enough to protect your company from the impact of downtime?
According to the EMC Global Data Protection Index, which surveyed over 3,000 IT decision makers across 24 countries, downtime and data loss costs the UK £10.5 billion annually. 60% of enterprises surveyed had suffered downtime in the last year, with consequences reported including loss of revenue and loss of customer confidence or loyalty.
Consumers expect to access your services 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When the systems go down, depending on the size of the business you could be losing money per second or minute.
If you’re interested in calculating the exact cost of downtime to your business, there are now a number of online tools to help you. You’ll usually need to input your annual revenue, the amount of revenue from online purchases and the amount of high revenue hours per day, among other factors. But of course, the negative impacts of downtime don’t stop at the loss of profit. It is a major inconvenience to your loyal customers, who could choose to go elsewhere or vent their frustrations on social media.
