How Would a System Outage Impact Your Business and Customers?

By Scott McDonald

Major system outages have been all over the headlines — from Southwest Airlines and the FAA to Microsoft and Twitter. Operational downtime is a huge problem for companies of any size, potentially impacting customer satisfaction, compliance adherence, brand reputation, and financial performance. Smaller companies, however, can find it especially difficult to weather such disruptions. According to one survey, the IT systems of nearly 25% of SMBs went offline in the previous 12 months. Of those SMBs surveyed, 37% said they lost customers and 17% said they lost revenue.[i]

When it comes to outages, how high are the stakes? There are formulas you can use to roughly calculate the cost of downtime. One recommends that you multiply minutes of downtime by the cost per minute. Atlassian suggests using $427 as the cost per minute for small businesses.[ii] When you run the numbers, the costs can add up quickly.

What’s behind all this downtime anyway? Outages can happen for a variety of reasons, but networking issues, cyberattacks, ransomware, and human error top the list. That’s why it’s so important to ensure your IT environment is properly configured, highly secure, and managed by best-in-the-business IT experts. If you’re trying to handle IT in house or if you’re relying on a local consultant or run-of-the-mill MSP, it’s time to evaluate your risk and determine if you should look for a more reliable IT solution.

Infinitely Virtual is a different kind of cloud IT provider. We partner with small and medium sized businesses to meet their IT needs — from cloud application hosting and security to managed services and IT support. All our solutions leverage our Enterprise Virtualization Platform™ (E.V.E), a proprietary cloud platform built on best-in-class technologies, that provides:

  • 100% uptime guaranteed – Count on uninterrupted access to your applications and data for smooth, efficient business operations.
  • 100% protection and security – Get total data protection, onsite and offsite backup, replication and restoration, and robust security against evolving cyberthreats.
  • Unlimited scalability – Instantly scale whenever you need to handle seasonal volume spikes or accommodate business growth.

Beyond our enterprise-ready platform, we offer a level of service that you just won’t get from other IT consultants or MSPs. We provide extraordinary value through:

  • Free migration and set up to ensure a smooth, hassle-free transition that minimizes risk
  • Responsive 24×7 service from IT experts with specialized experience working with SMBs
  • Risk-free 30-day money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied with your purchase
  • Predictable, affordable monthly fee that makes it easy to plan, budget, and control costs

If you wonder whether your applications and data are adequately protected against downtime and disruption, you owe it to your employees, customers, and stakeholders to re-evaluate your IT infrastructure and services. IV is here to help. Contact us to discuss your potential gaps and vulnerabilities and the benefits of partnering with a trusted cloud IT partner.