Downtime can break your business if you let it. Not all organizations have the ability to recover from downtime, and it shows when it matters most. Preventing downtime from occurring doesn’t require immense foresight. Rather, it requires the right mindset. We’ll discuss what downtime really is, what its effects are, and what you can do to keep it from influencing operations at your organization.
What is Downtime?
Downtime doesn’t have an easy definition, as it can be caused by a data breach, a natural disaster, hardware failure, or any other instance where your operations are affected enough that you cannot operate efficiently, or without taking a loss. We want to emphasize that the cause of the downtime doesn’t matter--the only thing that does matter is that your business isn’t functioning properly, and it shows.
Keeping downtime from happening is critical to the success of your business. Some instances of downtime might be hard to prevent, like the Internet or electricity going down, but you need to have countermeasures in place that allow you to make the most of any difficult circumstance.
What Are the Effects?
Let’s say that the electricity goes out and your business can’t function properly. Your employees might be sitting around in the dark, talking or not getting any work done. They can’t do anything without computers, so you can’t really fault them; still, the fact that your organization is at the mercy of electricity to keep your technology running should be telling.
Consider all of the time you’re paying these employees for just sitting around, working or not. Ask yourself how much revenue you’re losing out on due to clients not being able to access your infrastructure. Imagine how much you lose from not being able to provide support as it’s needed. It all combines to create a truly devastating blow to your business’s bottom line.
Now imagine the issues that come from trying to fix your organization’s downtime issues. It might be replacing a server unit, or implementing a solution that resolves a specific problem. Damage control means managing these risks so that the strain they place on your business doesn’t cause your organization to suffer needlessly.
What Should You Do?
Proactive technology maintenance can make sure your business suffers from a minimal amount of downtime. The right technology solutions can help your business effectively manage its technology in a way that actively prevents disasters rather than embraces and responses to them. To learn more about how our professional technology consultants can help your business, reach out to us at (215) 853-2266.
