
£12.3 Billion Lost to IT Outages per Year. Is IT Downtime Threatening YOUR Business Productivity and Profits?
No one likes to think their IT system will go down. But outages happen, and when they hit productivity, they can have huge cost implications. Recent Gartner statistics reveal the average cost of IT downtime can hit up to £4,000 per minute. Managing risk is therefore crucial, and IT support plays a pivotal role. But how best to secure the type of support that will guarantee your productivity never slips, and your profits stay intact?
Technology advancements have done incredible things for productivity. But even so, organisations are still being affected by unplanned downtime. And it’s costing a fortune.
Research by Imperial College has revealed that UK businesses are losing £12.3 billion per year through downtime incidents. And it’s clear to see why.
A UK manufacturing company with a £5 million turnover, for example, experiences 27 hours of downtime on average per year. This results in the equivalent of £74,250 spent annually attempting to resolve issues.
The reason these figures are so staggering is that when downtime hits, productivity stalls. Attention is diverted to fixing the problem, impacting on how quickly other tasks get completed. And vital day to day work grinds to a standstill, or at very least slows down. All of this affects production, costing time and money.
The hidden costs of IT downtime
IT downtime also masks hidden costs. If online ordering systems aren’t working or phone lines are down, competitors may benefit from your customers’ enquiries or orders. This loss of opportunity could have a compounded impact, because those customers may leave for good.
Regular downtime can impact on customer loyalty too, with reputation damage a major likelihood. If you were a customer constantly facing stumbling blocks when trying to get in touch or place an order, how long would you stick around?
There is also the financial threat of breaking a client Service Level Agreement, as well as breaching data protection laws.
And then there are the costs that can’t be directly measured. The impact on staff morale, for example, or the slowing of project progress, which may have a wider impact.
What is downtime?
IT downtime can mean a full system outage. But that’s not all. A slow-operating system, or one that’s only partially available, can also damage productivity, and it might even be happening without you realising. An IT support contractor will tell you that unstable internet connections, slow-loading pages and forms and poorly performing apps will all hit productivity.
“Human error accounts for 42% of IT downtime”
Downtime can be caused by a cyberattack. But hackers aren’t the only threat. System crashes account for 52% of downtime, according to a survey, whilst human error is behind 42%, and insider attack 20%. IT downtime can also follow on from hardware and software malfunction, as well as natural disasters.
What’s the best way to manage the risk of IT downtime?
An IT support contract helps you budget, staying on top of costs, with no surprises. The alternatives are buying in support as and when you need it, or employing your own in-house IT team to manage your technology and keep you up and running 24/7.
Your own in-house IT team may sound appealing, providing support on tap whenever you need it. But can your business weather such an overhead? Salaries, contributions, benefits, paid leave? And will they always be busy? Or will there be times when you’re paying them to do not very much at all?
The other option is to call in outsourced IT support as and when you need it. Now that’s fine if you have time to wait in line. Because when you’re buying in pay as you go IT support, there won’t be a Service Level Agreement. So you won’t be guaranteed a response time. And, depending on the nature of your IT issue, that could have a devastating effect on productivity. That delay between reporting the problem and seeing it resolved could mean orders not going out on time. Valuable leads lost. Frustrated staff. Reputational damage.
Thankfully, it doesn’t have to boil down to a standoff between weighty, profit-cutting overheads, and leaving everything to chance. An IT support contract provides the perfect middle ground solution.
Productivity will always be a key component of business growth. And if you want to keep that productivity flowing smoothly, your IT systems will have to function at their efficient best. Your staff will need to work glitch and frustration-free.
What’s included in an IT support contract?
With an IT support service contract, you enjoy continuity of service. With an IT support contractor on hand to answer your queries and prioritise your issues, any downtime will be dealt with in an agreed time frame courtesy of a Service Level Agreement.
Another benefit of an IT support contract is that you’ll have expert technicians monitoring your systems proactively, stepping in whenever a drop in performance is detected. This nips issues in the bud before they turn into major productivity-threatening problems.
An IT support contract buys you peace of mind. It allows you to budget too, buying hours in blocks that you call off as and when you need them, so you never pay for what you don’t use. And the great thing about outsourced IT support? It gives you access to a variety of skills, often at levels far higher than you’d be able to afford if you were to employ in-house.
Don’t lose out to downtime. Protect your productivity with an IT support contract from ClearTec IT.
With the costs of IT downtime adding up, and the increased importance of staying as productive and profitable as possible, it’s vital to have the reassurance of a reliable IT support contractor behind you.
At ClearTec IT, we specialise in making the complex simple. And that’s why we’ve made it a breeze to buy IT support hours in advance, in blocks to suit your budget.
Use them for everyday IT helpdesk support, routine maintenance, installations, updates and pretty much any other technical issue you might face. You’ll enjoy a guaranteed SLA-backed response time, access to our qualified IT experts and Microsoft accredited technicians, and priority over pay as you go IT support requests.
To learn more about the benefits of ClearTec IT becoming your trusted productivity technology partner, you are welcome to get in touch.