When your website or computer system goes down, do you have a backup plan? Downtime costs will hurt your bottom line fast, and you can’t get that lost time or money back. Fortunately, this scenario is completely avoidable with the right preparation.
In this post, we’ll cover what downtime actually means, common causes, and how you can protect your business against major losses with tools like website monitoring and a solid business continuity plan. No one needs to take a loss when unplanned outages decide to hit, especially when it’s easy to protect your assets.
Key Takeaways
When your website or business systems stop working, you’re experiencing downtime. This interruption may be scheduled (for example, maintenance) or unplanned, in the case of equipment failure, a cyberattacks, or a power outage.
Small businesses are at risk of lost revenue and major productivity loss during downtime events.
When downtime strikes, your employees can’t work and no one can buy your products or services.
Beyond just lost sales and time, there are other hidden costs too. Your business may incur urgent repair fees, overtime pay to fix existing problems fast, as well as penalties for missed deadlines.
Tools like website monitoring and a business continuity plan can help protect your income, productivity, and reputation from unexpected system glitches and failures.
Understanding Downtime
There are two main types of downtime your business may experience: planned and unplanned. Planned downtime includes circumstances like routine maintenance or software upgrades that may put your business on hold. Unplanned downtime can happen because of network outages, equipment failure, or human error.
Definition and types of downtime
When your website, data center, or other business systems are not functioning as they should, it’s because of either planned downtime or unplanned downtime.
Some downtime events are expected. Planned downtime events may include routine maintenance, software upgrades, or other scheduled work that you know is going to happen ahead of time. In this case, your employees may follow a downtime schedule which will limit the impact of the time they are unable to work.
However, unplanned downtime can appear without warning, disrupting your daily business activities. These are much more harmful to your bottom line and may include network outages, equipment failure, cyberattacks, issues related to human error, power outages, or database errors.
Any one of these events can stop your business operations immediately, causing an instant loss of productivity and income.
Common causes of downtime
To keep your business support systems up and running, you should understand what vulnerabilities can make your systems stop working. Here are some common reasons systems fail:
Hardware failures: A single piece of equipment can break at anytime and shut down your whole system.
Software bugs: Failing to update your software regularly can cause small errors in your programs. These errors can cause programs to crash and lead to data loss.
Cyber attacks: Your systems could be hacked through malware, ransomware, or denial-of-service attacks at anytime.
Human error: An employee may delete an important file on accident, or worse. These small mistakes can create major revenue loss.
Power outages: When you don’t have power, your business will shut down. From lights to website downtime, you’ll be put in a sticky spot for a period of time.
Network issues: Another factor that is out of your control is internet issues. Your internal network may slow down or prevent you from accessing sites or information you need.
Third-party service failures: You may work with partners such as a cloud computing provider or an email service provider. When these companies have problems, it directly affects your business too.
Natural disasters: You can never predict when a natural disaster such as an earthquake, flood, or storm will occur. These can cause major damage to your infrastructure, and result in long-term downtime.
Scheduled maintenance: While events like maintenance work have less of an impact on your business than an unplanned event, you’ll still have to stop your systems at times to keep them running smoothly for the long term.
The Financial Impact of Downtime
The worst part of experiencing downtime is that it can cost your business a significant amount of money. Between lost sales, less employee output, and hidden expenses, you’ll be stuck trying to regain momentum for some time.
Lost revenue
Every minute your business experiences a computer outage or any type of downtime, you’ll have a direct loss of income. The larger your business, the bigger the hit. In the manufacturing world, unplanned downtime can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour.
When your systems go offline, your customers are not able to place orders, meaning you’re missing out on sales, not to mention, disrupting the customer experience.
Productivity loss
When systems stop working during network downtime, revenue is not the only thing you’re losing. Productivity loss can greatly impact your business too. Your employees will not be able to access important data or finish their usual tasks. You’ll experience delays that can effect urgent deadlines and your customer satisfaction.
Additionally, the amount of time you spend dealing with the aftermath of downtime results in even more lost time and productivity.
Hidden costs of downtime
On top of the obvious losses like revenue and productivity, you should understand that too much downtime also has other hidden costs. When a crisis hits, you’re at risk of paying penalties for missed contract deadlines. This results in more lost revenue.
When you have your back up against the wall and you need to get your business systems up and running again asap, you may have to pay for extravagant emergency IT repair services. Paying high fees for overtime labor can set you back for months, just to fix issues quickly or hit a deadline.
Every moment counts when disaster strikes. It’s critical to be prepared in the first place so you’re not put in a bad position where you’re forced to save your bottom line during an outage. There are also ways you can protect yourself long before a problem arises, keep reading to find out.
Protect Your Business From Downtime
No matter the definition of downtime, it is extremely costly for a business of any size. For every minute or hour of downtime, you are losing revenue and resources. Ignoring the true cost of these types of disruptions puts your business, systems, and employees at risk.
The best way to protect yourself? By working with a managed IT company like WaTech in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Let the experts handle the security of your systems, so you can focus on what you do best. Being prepared for an outage is the smart thing to do to always keep your business running smoothly.
Minimize your risks and protect your company by reaching out to us today!
FAQs
This occurs when a system or service stops functioning and you are no longer able to access it. Databases, browsers, operating systems, and network management systems are all at risk of downtime.
Downtime risks are many and may include loss of personal information, security breaches, damage to data protection efforts, penalties due to missed deadlines, loss of revenue, and productivity loss.
Maintenance downtime causes major increases in costs through reduced productivity. Your team can’t work if they don’t have access to the files and data they normally would. They may need to resort to a less efficient process, or worse, wait for systems to come back online.
Having a strong contingency plan in place will protect your business against unplanned and disruptive events that can halt your services and cause immediate losses. Working with a managed IT company like WaTech will keep you protected from any preventable issue, saving you thousands in hidden costs.