Downtime is the enemy of the modern business, and it’s easy to see why. However, not all organizations have the foresight to imagine a scenario when their operations are impacted so badly that they simply cannot function. As downtime and disaster recovery specialists, we know and have seen what it looks like when companies have their worst casenarios, and want our clients to avoid that from happening. We’re here to share our knowledge of downtime, its effects, and what you can do to keep it from affecting your organization. Downtime kills productivity, so you should try to avoid it.
What is Downtime?
Downtime can come in many forms, whether it’s caused by a data breach, natural disaster, or hardware failure. The common factor among them is that your operations are impeded to the point where your organization simply cannot function as it’s intended. Even if you do not have the most high-speed internet, this can slow your operations. We want to emphasize that it doesn’t matter what the cause is; any situation you find yourself in where your business isn’t functioning at its best can be considered downtime.
Sometimes downtime isn’t as obvious as you might think. While some situations, like your Internet or electricity being down, are beyond your control, others might be prevented with the right countermeasures, but more on that later.
What Are the Effects of Downtime?
Look at any instance when your organization isn’t working like it should be, like the electricity in your office shutting off unexpectedly. Your employees might be sitting around in the dark, talking to each other and not getting any work done. After all, what can they do without computers? In today’s business world, it’s not uncommon for organizations to rely entirely on the power of machines, and they are therefore at the mercy of electricity to keep office technology operating. When they go down, no work gets done.
Consider the fact that you are paying your employees for the time they are spending in the office, whether they are working or not. Consider the amount of lost revenue from clients trying to access your infrastructure. Consider the fact that you can’t provide support without access to your organization’s technological assets. This can be a considerably expense, before you even have to pay to fix the actual issue.
Fixing the issue can be one of the most expensive parts of the whole process. It could mean replacing a server unit, implementing a solution that resolves the problem, damage control for your reputation, and most important of all, the massive strain it can place on your budget. Downtime is an unnecessary expense that your organization can do without. If you are not paying a managed service provider a monthly fee already to handle these sorts of issues and break downs, you could be looking at a lot of cash out of pocket.
What Can You Do?
With the right technology solutions, your organization can effectively mitigate downtime with proactive IT solutions designed to save your business money. To this end, Symmetric IT Group’s professional technicians can assist your business. Whether you need a technology consultant to discuss potential downtime-related issues or you’re ready to go in on a solution, we stand by you. To learn more about what we can offer your business, reach out to us at (813) 749-0895. Check out our business continuity page as well to learn about how we keep businesses from outages and data disasters.
