Why You Must Avoid Downtime At All Cost

network security

Why You Must Avoid Downtime At All Cost

Despite infrastructure advances, many organizations continue to face IT downtime. Such downtime can last from short periods, proving to be a minor inconvenience, to shutting down an organization for days. When downtime strikes, it is not only time-consuming but can prove to be costly in terms of resources and reputation. Yet, given the many cyber dangers that exist today, the struggle to secure data and prevent downtime remains complex for most organizations. With that being said, it must be avoided at all costs.
Your reputation is important

Downtime is not an only an internal problem. Reputations are important, and if your clients can’t access your website or their data, your reputation will suffer greatly. In this day and age, people expect constant access to their information, and if you can’t provide that, customers will flock to the competition who has more reliable and secure data plans in place. Worse yet, if downtime is caused by a breach, you can expect a loss of customers and potential legal liabilities. Simply put, any business must protect its reputation, and having systems in place to avoid downtime will go a long way in keeping clients from straying.

Hurt your bottom-line
In today’s business environment, ideas, plans and deals happen seemingly instantaneously. If you have any downtime such as a server going down, you can cost yourself tens of thousands of dollars, if not more. Other businesses and your current and future clients expect thing to work, 365 days a year, 24/7. Customers aren’t forgiving as people expect businesses to have everything in order.

Regulatory
If you run a finance company or other company that handles sensitive and important information, you can end up in serious trouble if you have long, drawn out periods of downtime. While this is an extreme example, RBS was fined nearly $74 million USD when it had a software issue that left millions of clients unable to use their accounts. At the same time, once regulators fine or warn your business, you will be forever under their watchful eyes and every misstep or slip will be investigated.

Productivity
When the contractors and employees of a company can’t work, not only is the company wasting money, but it’s losing productive working hours. If there is a failure of a key system or employees can’t access important data, some teams won’t be able to complete any work. When projects are delayed and employees are idle, it can create a domino effect as yet other projects will be delayed. Over the long haul, even a minor downtime event can thwart the growth of a small organization for months, if not years, to come.
Downtime must be avoided at all costs. Clients expect to have access to their information and data all the time, and an organization that doesn’t keep up with the times is going to lose money and productivity and may even be fined by governmental organizations if the downtime causes enough damage. Fortunately, with a plan in place and outside help from an IT management firm, you can mitigate your risks and avoid downtime altogether.

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