Did you know that business downtime can have terrible consequences? That’s right; even the smallest amount of downtime can cause a loss of revenue, become a hindrance to customer satisfaction, and reduce productivity levels. This is one of the reasons why it is so crucial to have an uninterrupted system that operates seamlessly without affecting the functioning of all your clients. For this, one needs to have powerful recovery and business continuity planning to avoid potential downtime in your business.
Hiring a professional can be pretty helpful because they can monitor proactively, conduct regular data checkups and backups, respond instantly to incidents, reduce costs, and maximize the protection of the infrastructure.
In order for you to understand how harmful business downtime is, we have gathered essential tips to keep in mind. These are recommended by the professionals at Ashton Solutions to keep business running smoothly, even during unexpected issues.
5 Common Causes of Business Downtime
Business downtime can be a cause of a variety of reasons, each implied for clients and their customers. It’s significant for people to understand these causes to help address and then reduce the risks that follow. Here’s a list of some of the most common causes and their effects:
1. Human Error
One of the most common causes of business downtime is human error, which can either be accidental or due to negligence. This lack of attention can cause businesses and clients costly downtime. It leads to a loss in productivity revenue and even causes potential damage to the reputation of the organization. Now, to lessen such problems, organizations need to hold frequent training sessions where they educate the employees on how important it is to monitor things proactively and to make sure all the highlights are resolved instantly. Staff should be given knowledge on implementing well-documented IT checklists and different policies to reduce the chance of causing errors.
For instance, in January 2023, airline departures were temporarily stopped because of a human error. The FAA later revealed that the issue was because a contractor deleted a few files by mistake. This caused a problem in the database, hence the cancellations nationwide. From then onwards, the FAA has actively conducted repairs and also implemented different measures to make sure the system is vital. However, the agency was under heavy criticism from the government and the public because of the issue. Hence, it was concluded that being mindful when dealing with different businesses is essential.
2. Intentional Malicious Disruption
Businesses can be at risk from disruptions that include threats and vandalism. These attacks can cause a lot of damage to the IT infrastructure, manipulate the systems, and also compromise different data. Malicious disruptions can cause extended downtime, compromise different data, and damage reputation and data integrity. This is one of the reasons we recommend implementing security measures to protect against all these attacks. Our team of professionals recommends conducting employee background checks, strict access controls so not everyone can see every piece of information that could potentially lead to loss and compromise, and monitoring systems for any suspicious activity.
3. Cyber attacks
Cyberattacks are one of the reasons why businesses can also suffer downtime because data is encrypted or sensitive data is stolen. There’s a hindrance in operations, and ransoms are also demanded. This is when having a professional team on board is significant because they can mitigate cyberattacks on different clients by implementing distinct solutions such as protection and endpoint monitoring. We recommend conducting regular security assessments and also explaining to the employees how important it is to carry out these practices to steer clear of such attacks. For example, a few years back in 2022, Black Basta, a ransomware group, targeted the dental association in America. They conducted a DDoS attack and stole around 9GB of data, leaking 2.8GB online. The data included sensitive information about the members, accounting sheets, NDAs, and more. This harmed various small businesses. The reason why this occurred is that many of these businesses do not have a personal IT department to manage such security-related risks.
4. Failure of Hardware
Hardware failures occur because of multiple reasons, some of them being manufacturing problems, old equipment, and power surges. When hardware components start failing, it can easily result in system crashes, data corruption, and business downtime. Our team assists clients by taking proactive approaches to monitor and maintain hardware devices. Any potential issues are underlined so they can quickly be resolved before they lead to disruptions. Additionally, regular audits are conducted, hardware upgrades are made, and measures are taken to minimize the impact of failure on the company’s operations.
For instance, in 2021, Facebook had a hardware failure at one of its data centers, which caused an outage. During the maintenance, the engineers had disconnected data centers from the world by mistake, which caused the issue. This caused problems for millions of users and also resulted in negative publicity. This shows us that reliance on the infrastructure isn’t recommended; one should also take continuous measures to ensure every device is operable.
5. Natural Disasters
Natural disasters are also a cause of business downtime, one of the reasons for the lack of power supply due to the sudden cuts. This is why it can be a risk to businesses, turn off channels of communication, and damage different hardware devices, causing extended downtime. Having Ashton Solutions can be beneficial, as it prepares clients for such events by applying comprehensive business continuity resolutions. These include backup of power, which promises uninterrupted work during these outages, data backup, and strategies to safeguard critical information during such incidents.
How Does Ashton Solutions Help With BCDR
Ashton Solutions provides you with excellent Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) solutions which can help minimize business downtime. Here’s how we can help:
- Instant Recovery: Our professionals offer BCDR Solutions that promise quick recoveries for different businesses in case of disruptions. We have readily available backups, which will help minimize downtime and ensure everyday operations are resumed quickly.
- Data Protection: We help prevent data loss during unforeseen circumstances. We have regular backups, and off-site storage systems ensure a safe cloud, which means all important business data is preserved and can easily be recovered if needed.
- Reduction in financial losses: BCDR Solutions, offered by Ashton Solutions, helps you reduce the losses that come with business downtime. We implement different strategies that help minimize revenue loss, lessen productivity, recover expenses, and maintain potential reputation damage. We aim to use these solutions so that our clients’ businesses continue and the financial impact is reduced.
- Improved adjustment after a loss: With BCDR, you can plan and improve overall business resilience. Our professionals help identify potential risks, conduct the business impact analysis, and apply BCDR plans. Organizations can work on different weaknesses and also ensure they can tolerate disruptions.
How Does BCDR Help?
Here’s how BCDR can assist clients in different circumstances:
- With the occurrence of natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes, businesses that have been impacted can use the BCDR solutions we provide to recover instantly. Data backups in cloud areas also help resume operations without any excessive downtime.
- Companies that have been targeted can also recover their data and systems using our BCDR solutions. With reliable backup service, they can get clean versions and avoid the need to pay ransoms and more extended downtime.
- Hardware failure: Businesses experiencing failures such as malfunctions or sudden crashes can mitigate their downtime through BCDR solutions. By restoring systems from backups, our clients can avoid a prolonged recovery procedure and have seamless operations.
Prepare Yourself for Everything
Have you been wondering about ways you could minimize the impact of business downtime? Then, you have landed at the right place because we have provided you with an in-depth explanation of how important it is to see things the way they are. It’s important to plan ahead of time to minimize the impact our clients face in case of any issue. We think it’s essential to have a strong system, regular backups, and instant responses to incidents to minimize the impact of business downtime.
Problems can occur at any time, which is why it is important to always be prepared. Our professionals are aware of this, which is why, at Ashton Solutions, we believe in doing in-depth research, devising BCDR strategies, assessing readiness, and improvising. We make sure to build trust, protect businesses, and provide the peace of mind you deserve.
Are you looking for powerful and practical solutions to minimize your business downtime? Connect with Ashton Solutions and speak to our professionals so you know what you’re stepping into before you confirm our services. With our advanced services, data protection, monitoring backups, and ensuring a quick, reliable recovery, you will remain on top with your customers.
