Overcoming the Fear of Downtime
The fear of downtime is a very rational fear, and one that keeps many business owners awake at night. Downtime costs UK businesses billions of pounds each year and can, therefore, be extremely detrimental to business revenue and growth. In this article, we consider the damaging impact that downtime can have and suggest ways in which you can protect your business.
Today’s consumers have higher demands and service expectations than ever before, which means that, although technology advances have led to increased availability in recent years, every second of downtime is now costlier than ever before. Have you calculated the estimated cost per hour of downtime on your business? It’s worth doing. IT and power outages can affect businesses in a number of ways. If your phones are down, customers can’t contact your business and this often leads to them going elsewhere out of frustration. If your business makes outbound sales calls, you won’t be able to do this and could, therefore, lose several hours’ worth of potential leads and sales. The effect of IT outages will depend on the nature of your business. The hardest hit will be those relying solely on online transactions. When customer service departments come to a standstill, not only can you suffer lost revenue but you can also be hit with severe reputational damage, the extent of which can be felt for years to come. Of course, I could go on but you get the point: downtime cause numerous problems, exacerbated by knock-on effects. So, doom and gloom aside, let’s move on…
How, then, can you protect your business from this frightful fate? Essentially, it is a matter of re-evaluating your disaster planning and recovery strategies. For many business owners, this in itself can cause anxiety and stress. If you simply don’t have the resources to invest in complex disaster recovery networks, don’t panic. Modern technology offers ways around this. You can remove the anxiety and stress, whilst at the same time overcoming the financial barriers, by simply outsourcing the hosting and management of your IT and communications to a company that specialises in cloud-based services. Such companies can provide you with access to the equipment and fail-systems designed to protect you against downtime, but at a fraction of what it would cost for you to own and manage these yourself onsite. Hosted services are designed to maximise uptime; providers tend to have multiple data centres, which are manned around the clock by engineers, and they often offer peace of mind with strict service level guarantees.
By outsourcing the hosting and management of your IT and office phone systems, not only can you protect your business, but you can enjoy many benefits besides. Not least, is the ability to focus on your core business purpose and boost efficiency within your organisation. Without having to worry about the technical stuff, you can simply get on with what you do best. On top of this, you can benefit from high-end business protection whilst at the same time potentially lowering costs. Hosted services represent extremely good value for money and also make financial planning much simpler too, because equipment costs, maintenance and ongoing support are all rolled into one manageable monthly payment.
In sum, we suggest that the simplest way of overcoming the fear of downtime is by outsourcing it. Why not let us worry about your business continuity, so you don’t have to? Give us a call today on 0800 849 8585 or contact us here.