If you own a business that relies on IT infrastructure, then you know how much downtime can cost you. According to research by IDC, companies in the Fortune 1000 lose between $1.25 to $2.5 billion per year due to IT downtime. While it is quite difficult to eliminate downtimes, you have to put in place measures to reduce their effects on your business.
To ensure continuity, businesses need a good IT solution firm to fix the issues. However, there is much more that can be done to reduce downtime. Preventive maintenance is one of the best solutions, where adopting a disciplined mindset and empowering employees can help you to minimize unplanned downtime. Here are other solutions to consider:
Use the cloud
Moving most of your operations to the cloud can significantly reduce the impact of downtime in your company. With most on-premises hardware replaced by data centers and your software and applications hosted on the cloud, a massive percentage of downtime risks is reduced. A company that owns multiple branches can benefit from the cloud even more since a situation in the headquarters cannot directly halt the operations of the departments. You can also coordinate with people around the world since the cloud allows for around-the-clock access to software.
Regular maintenance
Whether you own custom-made or bespoke software, hackers are trying every day to gain access to your system, like every other system worldwide. Besides, you have to deal with bugs and the constant threat of viruses. Through regular maintenance and updates, vulnerabilities in your business software can be easily identified and rectified. The same is applicable to physical IT infrastructure, where you can detect possible points of failure long before they happen.
Backup
Having a backup can give you peace of mind in the event of downtime. Downtimes can cause loss of crucial data and in some instances damage hard drives making all the stored data inaccessible. If you regularly back up your data, it will be much easier to restore your data, and this will save you hours that could have been spent trying to recover the data. With a backup up in place, downtimes will have minimal effects on your company’s operations.
There are many ways that you can use to reduce downtimes. It all depends on the primary cause of downtimes in your business premises. Conduct a risk audit to identify potential causes of these interruptions and devise a clear plan for solving them starting with the one that causes more losses in money and employee productivity.
In the end, even if you have the latest technology in place, it will be tough to meet the objectives of your company if downtimes continuously plague you. By taking the measures outlined above, you will be on the road to reducing downtimes and improving your business operations. You have to remember to educate your employees on the proper maintenance of equipment to avoid unnecessary downtimes that could have been easily solved. If you need help, seek the advice of professionals.