What’s The True Cost Of Downtime For Your Business?

Posted: 20th April 2021

When your emails won’t send or your printer won’t print, the cost of the downtime caused may be  more than you would think.

There are several ways to look at the true cost of downtime – the impact on productivity, the impact on your customers, the impact on your sanity… And that’s with the smallest of IT hiccups.

Some businesses learn to accept poor performing IT. Regular calls to their IT support team can slowly become common place but the financial calculations of the cost of downtime can be shocking.

How to calculate the financial cost of downtime for your business.

Reports suggest that on average, IT downtime costs UK businesses around £3.6 million per year. It’s also estimated that around 545 hours of productivity are lost annually. But of course, every business is different, and every IT issue is different.

If you experience regular IT outages, we recommend you start keeping a record of the cost of downtime your business experiences. Here’s a strong formula to follow:

1. Determine how many employees have been affected.
2. Calculate their average hourly salary.
3. Now decide the impact of the downtime on their productivity. For example, if your accounting software goes down, the impact on your finance department would be 100%. If the director’s printer fails but they can connect to the admin office printer, the impact would be around 10%.

The cost of downtime to your business = (number of affected employees) x (impact on productivity) x (average hourly salary). Not forgetting to add on any call-out charges from your IT provider should they apply.

At first, the cost of downtime on your business may be of no concern, but if you’re calling on your IT support team often, it might be worth monitoring the financial impact annually.

Other impacts of downtime on your business.

Productivity

Perhaps the most obvious but the loss of productivity might impact more employees than you think. Not only will the person directly effected be unable to perform their role efficiently, but other team members may also find themselves pulled away from their work, trying to help their colleague.

If there’s an issue with remote technology, your business may also see a drop in productivity; many people utilise time to and from work on public transport by picking up and responding to emails. When your IT isn’t functioning as it should, this time can be lost.

The bigger picture

If one member of staff is having IT issues, this can have a ripple effect. For example, If the graphic designers can’t access their software to complete the marketing material for the latest campaign, the marketing team miss their deadline on the latest promotion and potential new business could be lost.

Low morale

Failing IT can bring out the worst in people. Especially when there are deadlines to be met or customers to care for.

Whether it’s due to IT issues being plastered over or your technology needing an upgrade, IT equipment that holds your teams back from performing their role will dampen their spirits, crash productivity and can even lead to resignations.

Read more about the impact of using old technology.

Falling behind

The biggest cost of downtime has to be losing to the competition. Whilst you’re battling with reoccurring IT outages and your staff are killing time drinking excess coffee because they can’t do their jobs, your competitors are performing, growing and trying to poach your frustrated customers.

Say ‘goodbye’ to downtime.

At Jupiter IT, we give our clients proactive IT support. Whilst you and your team are working on your business, we’re working in the background, monitoring your systems constantly to ensure their efficiency. This approach gives our clients these key services:

#1 Advanced monitoring

We monitor our clients’ systems 24/7 to identify any potential issues in advance. This allows us to rectify any problems before they impact their staff or their business. Most of the time we are able to fix issues without a user knowing there was ever a problem.

#2 Reliable backups

We check our clients’ backups daily and perform test restores. If the worst should happen, we know that all data can be restored without issue and with minimal disruption to business.

#3 Patch management

We make sure all software updates are automatically performed without our clients having to lift a finger. This means security updates are never missed and patches are implemented at a time that doesn’t disrupt productivity.

#4 Asset management

We conduct regular hardware and software audits for our clients. As a part of this process, we highlight any end-of-life kit and assess their tech needs for the year ahead, keeping their business one-step ahead of the game.

#5 Disaster recovery

We’ll develop a recovery strategy for your business that matches your budget and time frame in which your business needs to be back up and running.

“We sometimes feel like we don’t have an IT provider as our issues are so infrequent and our systems run so smoothly.”

– Director, Wilson Yacht Management

Jupiter IT – your IT department.

At Jupiter IT, we don’t just deliver an outsourced IT support service, we become your IT department. Dedicated and invested to what’s best for your business.

If you’d like to learn more about our unique IT contracts, give us a call; we’ll give you a free audit of your systems and a rundown on how we can make your IT better.