The downtime challenge
According to recent studies, IT outages cost Australian businesses an estimated $65.5 billion dollars in losses annually. From power issues, data loss and system downtime all impact profitability and productivity.
The amount of downtime a company experiences during their productive hours is a form of lean waste. Downtime can be caused by all kinds of things, such as equipment problems, employee problems, and system problems. For every instance of wasted time there are lost profits and lost productivity.
Worst still If you lose your data, there is going to be additional costs for recovery of the lost files, downtime for staff while they wait for the files and then time to investigate causes and additional mitigation strategies. Often there is going to be additional costs no investment the issues and making sure and procedures are then being tested and verified on a regular basis.
Productivity and profits
Downtime of systems impacts employee productivity, which in its simplest form can be measured in terms of the salaries of workers that are made idle and unproductive. After a downtime event, fact-finding actions are often required to correct the damage.
For example, IT operations might work overtime or temporary staff may be contracted to recover lost data or re key information into systems. Add to this if customer and client satisfaction was damaged, an expensive special marketing program may be required to win back customers. This all adds up to a major dent in your company’s financial performance.
A simple approach
Sometimes you just have to take a different approach in fixing problems in order to avoid greater downtime later on. Those little, ongoing, niggling problems, are almost always symptoms of a larger issue.
Your best approach? Have a new set of eyes provide insight and ideas. As with anything, start with the basics and then move your way up in order to achieve the highest level of resilience for your systems and business.
The effects of data loss can be disastrous. Even if you succeed to overcome the data loss or downtime, you will have expended more money than you intended trying to recuperate it. Another area to consider is your team, and worst still your clients, having to regain the trust that might have been lost due to the misfortune of an event of outage and data loss, especially if it is a regular occurrence.
It is unrealistic to expect a complete elimination of downtime and outages, but there are key strategies you can implement in your business to keep these to a minimum, but more importantly if something does happen then you can get back up and running in the shortest time possible
- Have good backups that are checked daily and tested monthly
- Monitor your systems 24×7 regardless so you know when something goes wrong, even if you aren’t in the office
- Be proactive in maintaining your systems – updates, virus protection and firewalls
- Ensure your team have access to support whenever they needed it. There is nothing more frustrating then having a problem and not being able to talk to anyone about getting it fixed.
For more information on how you can select the best IT specialist for your business download one of our free resources at https://wyntec.net.au/resources/ or give us a call – 1300 655 523
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