Downtime is one of those words that every business owner and manager just dreads to hear.
When some or all of your people can’t access core IT systems and data, it’s always bad news – for relationships with customers, for productivity, for morale and, ultimately, for the bottom line.
Of course, the precise damage and cost of unplanned downtime depends on many factors and varies from one business to the next. Even losing a few hundred dollars per hour could make the difference between profit and loss on a job.
And downtime can have horrible impacts, with expensive machinery lying idle, inventories becoming depleted, staff abandoning other important tasks to understand the implications of the downtime and then advise customers of delivery delays and not to mention supply chain management. Your reputation for reliability and great service, hard-earned over many years, is suddenly under immediate threat.
We’d love to be able to say that unplanned downtime is 100% avoidable! The reality is that it’s very difficult to prevent every conceivable cause of downtime. Occasionally even the best technology fails and human error is always a possibility.
Faced with a challenge like this, you have to get practical – very quickly! What do we do about this then? Well, here are some key things that you can do to minimize unplanned downtime – and even planned downtime too:
- Understand the risks and potential costs to your business of downtime
- Create a strategy and action plan to proactively manage all aspects of your IT
- Put a disaster recovery plan in place
- Organize regular automated backups
- Regularly check your backups
- Monitor and update all your devices and systems.
The thing is, for most businesses with limited IT resources and expertise, the most efficient and cost-effective way of ensuring that these tasks are completed and checked is to work with a trusted IT service partner with specific technical expertise and management skills. One that understands your business essentials, such as speed of response, proactive support and the importance of security.
Although there are costs involved, as there are engaging with any supplier, these are usually very reasonable, while the impact of not making this investment can be huge.
If you’re concerned about the impact that downtime could have on your business and what you can do to prevent it, drop us a line at hello@adaptiveis.net or call us at 831-644-0300.
Adaptive Information Systems was founded with the mission to help businesses get the most out of their technology investments. We are a Salinas computer technology company that provides technical support services for businesses in Salinas, Monterey and the surrounding areas, we are ready to manage your IT needs so you can focus on running your business.
831-644-0300