You struggle for 20 minutes with a software issue on Tuesday. On Wednesday, your office Wi-Fi is out for 45 minutes. Then Friday, an unexpected hard drive crash costs your team several hours of productivity and a missed client deadline.
Downtime comes in many forms. Some of them major, like the hard drive crash, and some of them barely noticeable, stealing a few minutes here and there.
But no matter how downtime materializes, it’s costing you money. The big question is: How much?
One of the reasons so many businesses in Charlotte sign up for managed IT services is to reduce downtime and the associated costs. When your company experiences a technology issues that keeps you or your team from working, that’s a part of your business that’s essentially closed.
It’s important to fully understand where downtime comes from and how much it’s costing you on a monthly basis, so you can make wise IT decisions.
Common Downtime Issues & Costs
According to industry studies, the average cost of downtime is a shocking $5,600 per minute. That means that a 45-minute Wi-Fi outage could cost you over $250,000.
But where are those costs coming from? We’ll take a look.
Lost Productivity
The biggest loss area when it comes to downtime is in productivity. If your employees can’t do their jobs due to an IT problem, your business is at a standstill.
Lost productivity is why even those small interruptions due to a software issue here or a printer error there, can add up to big costs without you realizing it.
For example, say that in your office a total of 40 minutes are wasted each day due to some type of employee IT issue. Multiply that times a 40-hour workweek and an average salary of $20/hour. Those “few minutes here and there” could be costing you about $800 each month.
It makes an IT service plan with tech support a great deal in comparison.
Cost of Interruptions
An oft overlooked part of downtime costs are the costs of having work interrupted. When someone is flying along in their work and concentrating fully on their task, an IT problem can mean more than just the 15 minutes spent fixing the issue.
It takes an average of 23 minutes for a person to get back into the same mental space and level of concentration on a task after being interrupted. So, for each small downtime incident, add on the additional cost of the interruption when it comes to productivity cost.
Lost Customer Trust
A downtime incident can cost you a lot when it comes to your customers. Some may not say anything but might choose to order from you less because they’ve lost some trust in your ability to meet their needs.
When your company is suffering from an outage it can impact your ability to meet customer order demands, send an invoice, or even to simply answer a support call or email. All of these things can make a client lose confidence in your company.
Lost Revenue
Tied closely to lost customer trust is lost revenue. This can come from existing customers who feel you’re too risky to do business with after a downtime incident. It can also come from the inability to follow up with new leads due to part of your IT infrastructure being down.
Lost revenue from missed opportunities is difficult to calculate at the time of a downtime incident but shows up when looking at things like year-over-year revenue comparison reports.
Emergency IT Costs
If you go into a downtime incident without a managed services plan, you’ll most likely be paying high costs for emergency help.
Things like a hard drive crash or ransomware attack can significantly damage your business, and the longer you’re down, the more costly that incident becomes.
The average cost of a ransomware attack for small businesses is $713,000.
If you’re having to play catch up with your network security and need immediate assistance, it costs you significantly more than if you had put proactive measures in place.
Lack of Forward Motion
When you’re putting out downtime fires, you’re not focusing on growing your business. That lack of forward motion ends up costing you when it comes to implementing growth strategies.
It’s hard to put an exact dollar amount on lack of forward motion and focus, but it’s a very real cost of downtime. It can prevent you from optimizing, stop you from seeing upcoming threats to your business, and just put you in a place where your business stagnates and feels stuck.
Mitigate Downtime of All Kinds with a Tailored Support Package
IP Technologies doesn’t use “one size fits all” plans when it comes to managed IT services. Talk to us about a plan that’s tailored to your needs and can reduce your downtime costs considerably.
Contact us today for a free consultation. Call 704-912-4999 or reach out online.
