What are the true costs of network downtime on your business? An IT system outage is much more than an inconvenience. It can lead to a cascading negative impact, as your customers, employees, and other stakeholders are affected when disaster strikes.
1. The Cost of an Hour
When your IT systems are offline, even for a few minutes, your business is going to suffer unless you have a solid Disaster Recovery plan in place. One hour of downtime will cost, on average:
• $8,000 to a small business
• $74,000 for a mid-size company
• $700,000 for large enterprises
That’s for 60 minutes! Research shows that it takes an average of 18.5 hours for a business to recover. Depending on the nature of the event and the size and scope of the system, it can take even longer.
Despite this risk, only 25% of IT executives have a cloud-based Disaster Recovery plan in place. With Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) all your company’s information and data is duplicated, in real time, to an alternate datacentre Where does this leave the other three-quarters of businesses when a virus, natural disaster, cyber-attack, hardware failure, or human error attacks? Does your business have a plan in place to get your IT systems up and running quickly when disaster strikes?
2. Lost Productivity
A 2015 study found that in North America, companies lose up to $700 billion each year due to the fallout from an IT outage, including a 78% drop in employee productivity. If you want to take an honest look at how much an IT system outage will impact your business, just factor in how much you are paying idle employees each hour that goes by. The cost increases if you have to pay overtime wages to make up for the lost work, not to mention the immeasurable cost of a frustrated staff.
3. Diminished Reputation
Allowing your network to experience a serious downtime is one of the fastest ways you can tarnish your company’s hard-earned reputation. A survey of Deloitte employees in Australia found that the number one workplace frustration is a slow internet as it leads to a spike in customer complaints, lost productivity and low morale.
An IT outage isn’t just a customer relations problem, but rather a crisis. People are less interested in doing business with a company that experiences network downtime. A survey of Fortune 500 companies found that half reported a negative impact on their reputation due to IT downtime, 18% described the impact as ‘very damaging.’ The same companies, on average, faced 14 lost hours a year.
When an IT outage makes headlines, as was the case with Virgin Australia’s epic failure last year when hardware issues caused Sydney’s airport to fill up with frustrated passengers, the reputation fallout can be even worse.
4. Lost Revenue
When your networks are down, your business is down. If your website is down and customer service representatives are offline, your business is missing out on revenue. Every minute counts as your customers become more frustrated, your employees are unable to do their job, and your business has to scramble to get your IT up and running.
When the unexpected happens, your business is forced to direct all resources to address your IT disaster, while watching your manpower and revenue potential go out the window until your system is taken care of. The longer it takes, the more likely you are going to suffer the long-term effects of a damaged reputation.
When you are prepared for disaster an IT system outage becomes a minor issue rather than a catastrophe. Zetta helps businesses recover seamlessly with our DRaaS. Comprehensive, secure, and absolutely scalable, it takes the risk and hassles out of Disaster Recovery. Find out more about our Managed Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) today >>
