The Effects of Downtime On Companies and How to Minimize It

Posted by alvina on March 28th, 2017

Companies are highly dependent on technology in order to store data, transfer information, sell products, amongst other things. So what happens if there are technical issues? A high percentage of companies go out of business if they experience a downtime of an extended period. Although the circumstances are unforeseen and unavoidable, the unscheduled (and even scheduled) downtime can have an enormous negative impact on the company.

What are the effects of downtime? There is the direct effect of profitability; that is, the company loses profit as customers will not be purchasing or using their product. If customers cannot access the server, the chances of them returning to try again is not always reliable. Productivity is also affected, as employees can't do their work. If a company is experiencing downtime, the employees will still need to be paid, so time and money are wasted as there is no progress [for the company] being made. In addition to profitability and productivity, the reputation of the company will be at risk and users will no longer feel confident in the services being rendered. The users and customers can become dissatisfied and turn to a competitor, and let’s face it, in this day and age, alternative service providers are not that hard to find.If servers are delayed, then the manufacture and shipping of the products can be deferred and that will make for unsatisfied clients. Additionally, a bad reputation may negatively a
ffect investors (both current and prospective).

As previously mentioned, downtime is unavoidable. However, there are ways to minimize the amount of unscheduled downtime by quickly recovering the data.

Disaster recovery in the cloud software which allows the company to recover their lost data in one click. How does it work? Well, first is the initial sync in which you will install and launch the software. During this step, data is replicated and is then backed up. After the initial sync is completed,continuous replication will ensure that any changes made will automatically sync to the Cloud. Moreover, disaster recovery tools are in place to ensure that it is working correctly when the one touch recovery button is clicked. During this time, there will be no disruptions to the data or software. When downtime does occur, failover comes into play. This is when the button is clicked on the Cloud causing the spin back. The process kicks in within minutes and your data is then recovered. The last step in recovery is the Failback, which lets you return to normal usage.

It is worth noting that if your company is experiencing downtime, it is important to keep in constant contact with your customer base to avoid further dissatisfaction.