Downtime is a serious issue for businesses, sometimes to the point of it being a business killer when it’s left unchecked. But what is downtime, and why is it such a problem? Today, we want to help you understand just that, and we’re doing it by calling on the exact opposite of downtime: uptime.
Understanding Downtime
Downtime is any period of time when your business isn’t working the way it’s supposed to, and it’s dangerous in large quantities.
Downtime can be caused by all kinds of issues, but the most common ones are hardware failure, system outages, software glitches, cyberattacks, power surges, and so on. Heck, even scheduled maintenance can be considered downtime if it disrupts your operations.
Basically, any situation where your employees can’t do their jobs and your customers can’t access your goods and resources is considered downtime, and you want to avoid it as much as possible.
The reason is simple: even if it’s not directly eating into your bottom line (like replacing broken IT systems), downtime is creating situations where you’re throwing money down the drain, paying people to do jobs they can’t do because the systems aren’t working the way you intended.
Understanding Uptime
On the other hand, uptime is when your IT systems, services, and applications are working correctly; it’s here where you want to be most, if not all of the time.
Uptime looks dramatically different from downtime. It’s when your business is running the way it should; applications work well, there aren’t any issues with teams or employees accessing the files they need to do their jobs, and your office is functioning like a well-oiled machine. Most businesses aim for 99.9% uptime as a metric of success.
The crazy thing? You can get there too, even if it feels like you’re constantly dealing with technical issues.
What’s the Big Difference?
Maximizing uptime is not a recommendation; it’s vital to the success of your business.
Downtime impacts internal operations, which consequently affect your revenue streams and customer satisfaction. When customer trust and satisfaction is affected, so too is your business’ financial stability and longevity. When your business suffers downtime, it trickles down to every other part of your business, and you need to take measures to mitigate it as much as possible.
Business Solutions & Software Group can help your organization nip downtime in the bud and implement proactive solutions that can detect and prevent it before it impacts your operations. Learn more today by calling us at (954) 575-3992.
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