In the moment, downtime is always frustrating. But unless you’re experiencing downtime on a regular basis, you may not realize how it truly impacts your bottom line, particularly if, in order to avoid downtime, you have to invest in a technology strategy and budget. But with small businesses losing up to $9,000 per hour of downtime, it’s crucial to be as proactive as possible with your technology to avoid losing money and frustrating users. If you’re struggling with the idea of investing in a comprehensive technology solution, it might be time to explore the facts in order to determine what your course of action should be.
48% of companies report tech-performance issues daily.
Every single day your users will have something to address with regard to technology performance. The more pieces you have in place to help you resolve these issues as quickly as possible – the more quickly your users can get back to work and the less money your organization loses. This is why we make a case for top quality IT support. If you have a strict process in place and a dedicated resource for support, your users will know exactly what to do and you can be sure that skilled technicians are resolving issues.
3 of 4 global executives interviewed reported that frequency of failures is increasing or staying the same.
One of the most shocking statistics is that companies aren’t taking technology failures seriously. With more and more technology being added into company infrastructure, it’s clear that a comprehensive approach to make sure that these technologies can play well together is needed. Despite that need, only 17% of companies surveyed hired an external consulting firm directly following their technology failures, with 20% increasing IT staffing and 33% increasing staff training. If a technology strategy is flawed, hiring more support staff can help you get through failures more quickly, but even if your users are well-trained on your software, it’s inevitable that when your infrastructure is flawed the failures will continue or increase. An external consultant or strategic resource are much more valuable in instances when failures appear to be increasing.
81% of companies surveyed reported that the exact same failure has recurred since the initial incident.
What does this tell us? Say it again with me: organizations aren’t taking technology failures seriously. Only 33% of companies surveyed actually report regularly collecting data and quantifying the impact of failures. Many of the companies impacted by technology failure don’t understand the implication. Just like we’ve calculated the lost profits from slow workstations, we can apply the same formula to technology failures and downtime, since this results in decreased productivity and unproductive users.
It’s clear that if Enterprise organizations are still failing to grasp the changes that need to occur within their technology infrastructure, that small businesses are even further behind. Understanding how underperforming technology can impact your organization’s bottom line is the key to getting started with a solution. Rather than doing piecemeal fixes like increasing training or staffing, it’s time to proactively plan your technology strategy with a consultant, provider or other resource that you can work with regularly and implement a comprehensive, long term infrastructure that serves your business processes and users now and in the future.