What is IT downtime? Why is it important?
IT downtime doesn’t just mean a full system outage, such as a power cut or a broken down server.
Downtime can be due to a smaller incident that will ultimately impact your business. These can affect your overall profit and productivity. For example, slow websites and online tools can reduce the effectiveness of our service long term, for both your customers and employees.
Downtime can also occur due to:
- Overloaded servers due to high traffic
- Your team being tied up on IT issues rather than completing their work
- Data breaches and data losses
Cost of downtime
Unplanned IT problems are very common, with Forbes (2022) reporting that “82% of companies have experienced at least one unplanned downtime incident over the past three years.” Of these companies, many have experienced two or more downtime incidents.
When these problems strike, your overall profits can decrease. Unplanned downtime can increase costs as productivity within your team grinds to a halt. This can go on indefinitely until the problem is fixed, and can effect your ability to make more sales and provide services.
Keep costs low with managed IT support
Forbes (2022) reported that “predictive and preventative methods are better at boosting uptime and keeping production running.”
You can’t know what a downtime incident will actually cost you until it happens. By outsourcing your IT support to a team of specialists you can be sure your business is supported 24 hours a day. Productivity will be maintained. Your team can stay on task, instead of sorting out IT problems. Their expertise can be put to better use to improve your company.
With a managed IT infrastructure you can also plan ahead and budget to cover the monthly subscription or usage fees, to ensure low costs.
