How to avoid downtime and improve your business continuity
Continuous IT niggles and downtime are costly to your business. We review the costs of downtime and how to improve your business continuity.
Your network and IT systems are the lifeblood of your business. When they work properly, they can bring cost savings and improve productivity. Conversely, ineffective IT can lead to downtime and loss of business.
IT downtime refers to periods when a computer or any vital part of your IT system is unavailable. This can relate to the internet, website, servers, hardware or software. Equally, numerous factors can lead to downtime, including power outage, human-made error, hardware failure or even software failure.
Continuous IT niggles and downtime should be avoided as the costs to your business can be vast. We look at this in more detail below.
The costs of downtime
- Loss of revenue: whilst your systems are down, you are unable to service your customers which results in lost revenue.
- Damage to your reputation and customer loyalty: downtime can frustrate customers and impact perception as your business can come across as being poorly managed.
- Loss of productivity: if employees cannot work properly, they are less productive and less able to provide a quality service.
- Recovery costs: this includes the costs to restore, repair or replace the IT system, and where necessary, hire external expertise.
- Loss of data: there are legal and contractual costs associated with data loss, particularly in regulated industries. Moreover, there are costs of recreating lost or damaged data, as well as lost opportunity costs.
Regardless of business size, being aware of the implications of downtime and how to avoid them is key.
Practical tips to reduce downtime and improve your business continuity
- Network monitoring: By proactively monitoring and managing your network, you can identify and resolve potential issues before they become a problem. This can minimise unplanned downtime and outages.
- Regular backups: By implementing regular backups, you can protect against data loss and ensure your business can recover quickly. Create a schedule for daily backups and test your backup retrieval process so you can restore vital information in an emergency. The faster you can restore your data, the less downtime you’ll experience.
- Develop a disaster recovery plan: This plan outlines the recovery process, so that everyone knows what is required rather than figuring it out under the pressure of an outage.
- Secure your systems: Protect your business against common cyber threats with comprehensive security systems and policies. This will help avoid unplanned outages caused by cyber-attacks. Where possible, use company-issued devices, as discussed in Why you should think twice before implementing BYOD.
- Employ a reliable IT support partner: A good IT support partner will work with you to provide strategic advice to improve the performance and reliability of your systems. As a result, you should have better performing and more secure systems that are less prone to downtime. You have the reassurance that your systems are well looked after and in addition, it frees up your time to focus on running your business.
Technology can be a key driver of business efficiency and competitive advantage. To reap these results however, you need to ensure your systems are reliable, secure, protected and well maintained.
