With people becoming more dependent on digital-based solutions for work and everyday living, keeping them available at all times matters more than ever. Unfortunately, there will always be factors that can disrupt operations, such as hardware failure, equipment quality, natural calamities, scheduled maintenance, and more. This disruption is referred to as downtime, and it can leave employee operations frozen and customer services unavailable, depending on severity.
Companies must have a business continuity plan to curb downtime as the longer it remains, the more adverse effects there will be. There have been many instances where businesses had to close down due to the enormous losses brought by downtime. In this blog, we’ll discuss the four ways downtime can negatively impact organizations.
Reason #1 - Downtime hurts business productivity
Both employee productivity and service delivery are adversely affected when downtime hits. Today’s employees heavily rely on digital technology such as email and chat software and various productivity tools to conduct work. Moreover, most services now are offered online, especially in today’s new normal under the pandemic. The absence of network connectivity due to downtime can put an entire workplace to a screeching halt, and employees may be left with nothing to do but to wait for servers to come back online.
Reason #2 - Downtime leads to lost revenue
The longer a company’s online service is inaccessible, the more it loses money. Under downtime, a significant part of the business is crippled, which leads to financial losses in return. One of the biggest downtime events that ever happened was back in March of 2019 when Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp became unavailable for 14 hours. It reportedly cost Facebook almost $90M, which was $6.3M for every hour of downtime.
Reason #3 - Downtime damages brand reputation
Brand reputation damage may be a non-quantifiable loss, but companies should be wary of its harmful effects, especially if it’s due to the unavailability of their critical online services. If customers encounter frequent interruptions, they’ll not only stop using those facilities but will also share their negative experiences on social media for everyone to see. Companies should also keep in mind that customers nowadays look for reviews first before making a purchase, and a negative one can turn them off instantly.
Reason #4 - Downtime may lead to data loss
Hardware failure during downtime can result in a company being unable to collect, generate, and analyze crucial data for decision-making. Furthermore, downtime can also be part of a cyberattack to steal personal information. Cybercriminals usually unleash server-crippling DDoS attacks before stealing data as it keeps IT staff busy from acting against other malicious activity. Such an instance happened back in 2015 when Carphone Warehouse lost the credit card details of up to 90,000 customers after its IT team was overwhelmed in dealing with a barrage of junk traffic.
In addition to the losses above, companies without an appropriate business continuity plan to mitigate downtime could also face penalties from government agencies. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Circular 951, for example, sets a maximum of only four hours of downtime for all BSP-supervised financial institutions (BFSIs). Failure to comply with the circular may lead to a combination of monetary and non-monetary sanctions and the suspension of operations.
How can companies address downtime?
Companies can choose to host their mission-critical IT equipment within data centers to ensure uninterruptible online services. Data centers are built to withstand natural calamities, and they typically possess Security Operations Centers (SOC) that businesses can utilize for round-the-clock cybersecurity. There are also telco-neutral data centers connected to multiple Internet Service Providers (ISPs), which allow companies to switch seamlessly between networks when one becomes offline. Data centers also practice enhanced maintenance measures to avoid hardware failure and have Disaster Recovery Seats (DR Seat) that can act as temporary offices when disasters strike main offices.
One data center that provides all of these is the Beeinfotech PH Hive data center. Its Seismic-4 compliance and ongoing Uptime Institute Tier-III classification make it sturdy enough to withstand any seismic activity and continue operations during maintenance. It is also connected to all major telecommunication providers and employs Remote Hands professional maintenance services that include preventive testing to anticipate and stop hardware failure. The Hive also immediately detects and responds against cyber threats through its Security Operations Center and assures continuous operations through its Bee SURE Disaster Recovery Seats that contain office amenities and even computers for employees.
Whether it’s man-made, sudden system failure, or a natural disaster, downtime is a constant occurrence that can happen anytime. Another thing that should also be constant is a company’s business continuity efforts to reduce downtime and its negative effects. Through the assistance of data centers, businesses can continue providing critical online services to customers at all times without any interruption.
To learn more about how data centers protect companies from going offline, visit https://www.beeinfotech.ph/.