Poor IT infrastructure leads to downtime
IT infrastructure is vital to how most businesses function today, which is why downtime can have such a disastrous financial impact. Whether it’s an external attack, outdated systems or user errors, tech challenges can be a serious obstacle to profitability and growth. These are just some ways your business can suffer when it comes to IT downtime.
How does downtime affect your business finances?
- The cost of staff doing nothing – IT downtime means that staff can’t do their job – but you’re still paying them. If you lose an hour a week to IT downtime and pay your staff £25 an hour, that’s approximately £18,000 yearly in a small 15-person company. When you start to look at the cumulative impact of even small periods of downtime, the costs really add up.
- Lost opportunities – When IT isn’t functioning, then your business isn’t either. That might mean you miss out on a small window of opportunity to win new work and lose out to a competitor. It’s likely to mean that you have to bill clients for less work because you’ve achieved less. You can’t charge your clients or complete your projects if your workforce cannot work.
- Compliance penalties – If you don’t have the right safeguards and protection in place – or even if you do, but you haven’t followed the right processes – then your business could be hit with financial penalties as a result. Regulation, such as the GDPR, has introduced much more stringent measures in recent years that have made it even more costly to make mistakes – penalties could be up to 4% of your worldwide revenue. Implementing measures to avoid IT downtime will help to ensure business continuity and also protect you from the regulator’s fines too.
- Ransom payments – Even small businesses can be the target of ransomware attacks today, and this can be very costly indeed. If an attack on your business is successful, then you will have a painful choice to make about whether or not you pay the ransom. If you do, there is no guarantee of regaining access or not being hit with another ransom demand. It can take a lot of time, money and effort to get all your data back.
- Damage to your credibility and reputation – One of the major issues with IT downtime, no matter what has caused it, is the impact this is likely to have on how your customers see the business. Downtime is frustrating and damages customer service, and it may well mean that existing customers start to take their business elsewhere, triggering huge financial losses. 70% of people will hesitate to work with a business if there is a chance that their data isn’t going to be secure, so downtime can also jeopardise future customer relationships too.
Conclusion
Regarding IT downtime, it’s vital that you take proactive steps to avoid this wherever possible. The costs – from reputational damage to lost opportunities and compliance penalties – can be crippling. You can learn more about the benefits of having a robust IT infrastructure or keeping your systems secure with IT security here.
If you’re ready to take action and put the steps in place to maximise IT uptime, contact us today.
