Downtime is usually pretty straightforward. All systems and machines face mechanical failures at some point, which often result in downtime.
When IT systems go down, it costs businesses in different ways. It is not just the monetary loss that you bear. Your company also suffers from lost revenue, lower productivity, the cost of recovering, reputational damage, and more. If worse comes to worst, it could also lead to a total collapse of the business.
Read on to learn about all the costs of downtime that your business has to bear should your IT system goes down!
The Total Cost of Downtime
The cost of downtime varies largely, depending on your industry, revenue, the duration of the downtime, commitments etc.
Studies for a ten employee company, suggest that the average cost of IT downtime is €120 per minute. Considering the differences in each businesses function, it could be as much as €7,200 per hour in the lower range and €50,000 per hour in the higher range.
Additional Costs of Downtime
Downtime does not essentially cost cold hard cash. These costs are usually an estimation of the loss during the downtime. This could include losing a contract as your prospects might go elsewhere due to a backlog. A few examples of additional downtime costs are as under:
Tangible Costs of Downtime
- Lost sales
- Overtime wages or salaries paid to employees to make up for lost time
- Recovery costs
- Penalties and charges for late shipping, bank fees or compliance
Intangible Costs of Downtime
- Reputational loss
- Loss of business opportunities
- A decline in share value
- Loss of customer trust and goodwill in the business
- Damage to brand image
- Loss of customers to competitors
- Lower productivity
How to Calculate Your Downtime Cost
To calculate your business’ downtime cost, there are a few things that you have to consider. A simple formula that makes it easier to calculate this cost is as under:
The Cost of Downtime per Hour = Lost revenue + Lost Productivity + Recovery Costs + Additional Costs
Note that additional costs include all hidden or associated costs that might not be immediately quantified when the downtime occurs.
Conclusion
Downtime costs are pretty standard, and they can be staggering in most cases. The longer the outage lasts, the more will be the cost of downtime for your business. While most IT systems go down for a few hours, some can last several days. In such cases, the downtime could be due to a bigger problem that might take weeks to get fixed. So if downtime extends for an unusually long period, it also poses a risk of complete ruin.
Are you worried about the downtime costs for your business? Get us on board to let you enjoy stable systems and more uptime. Motherboard IT Support offers remote monitoring, essential and preventative maintenance, and troubleshooting of your network so that downtime is one less worry on your list!
