For successful and prospective businesses today, IT services aren’t an “accessory” support function, but rather a critical tool that must be maximised to facilitate business growth and success. Networks and systems are the heartbeats of an organisation, crucial to business continuity. When IT halts, business suffers, and this disruption can be devastating and even lead to a company’s demise.
Unexpected downtime, even if only for a short while, can be enormously costly. According to studies by Gartner, the average cost of network downtime is roughly $5,600 (£4,192) per minute, translating to around $300,000 (£224594) per hour. However, it is significant to note that this is just an average, so there would be a considerable degree of variance based on the nature of your business operation.
CALCULATING POTENTIAL DOWNTIME REVENUE LOSSES
You may be intrigued as to how much you risk losing from unforeseen network downtime. Unfortunately, it takes a bit of mathematical effort and a trusty calculator, but this proven equation is the simplest way to calculate potential revenue losses:
LOST REVENUE = (GR/TH) x I x H GR = Gross yearly revenue
TH = Total yearly business hours
I = Percentage impact (How much of your business operations have been affected percentage-wise)
H = Number of hours of outage (Gartner Research Group’s studies estimate the average business sees 87 hours of downtime per year)
THE DOUBLE IMPACT OF DOWNTIME
The immediate impacts of downtime are well-known and well-documented- pretty much anything that would lead to instant financial harm and daily business operation inconvenience. However, the damages often stretch far beyond the obvious, further hurting your company in long-term fashion, such as a great hit to your reputation. As we know in business, your reputation is everything, good or bad, and the aim is to be far more good than bad, should you wish to experience growth and success.
DIRECT DOWNTIME COSTS
- Lost sales revenue
- Penalty fees such as priority shipping charges, bank fees or contract penalties
- Lost inventory/materials
- Overtime wages paid out to compensate for lost employee time
- IT recovery costs
INDIRECT DOWNTIME COST
- Loss of business opportunities
- Bad publicity
- Loss of customer trust and goodwill
- Decrease in stock value
- Damage to the company brand
- Loss of customers to competitors
A CENTERPRISE SOLUTION: DISASTER RECOVERY
Technology can be unpredictable. Whether you’re an established business or just starting, a well-developed backup and recovery plan is the perfect lifeboat to get you out of the trouble IT downtime causes. Centerprise became one of the UK’s leading business continuity providers when it acquired CiContinuity in 1994. Under the CiContinuity brand, we deliver traditional ship-to-site, office recovery, and mobile data centre solutions, along with industry-leading cloud replication and recovery services (DRaaS) designed to meet the business needs of our customers.
Get in touch with our on-call specialists now! For more information on the dangers of network downtime and how Centerprise can lend a cost-effective helping hand.