IT downtime can have detrimental impacts on the success of your business and makes it very difficult to effectively grow your business. It causes financial loss, workflow disruptions, and reduced employee engagement.
There are a number of reasons why IT downtime can occur. Cyber-attacks, data breaches, and hardware failure are some of the most common causes and they can lead to serious long-term issues if they’re not dealt with correctly.
The longer the period of downtime, the more costly it is for the business. Just one hour of downtime could cost a large organization thousands of dollars.
Because downtime can be so detrimental, many businesses choose to allocate funds towards preventing it. They hire expert IT teams, implement extensive data security measurements, and provide important training to their employees.
How to Avoid IT Downtime
No matter how big or small your organization is, taking steps to reduce downtime is important. Here are some great things that you can do to minimize the risk of downtime in your business to enhance your long-term success.
Improve Change Management
Four-fifths of downtime is caused by change. Therefore, having an effective organizational change management plan is essential to reduce the risks and impacts of downtime in your business.
Organizational change begins with each employee making positive decisions for themselves. These individual choices collect as one to produce positive changes across the whole business.
Training staff to adapt well to technology changes will reduce the risks of data breaches caused by employee errors. Your team will be able to spot phishing emails or faulty links, and will know how to report IT issues properly.
Plan Your Recovery
No matter how strong your cybersecurity is and how many steps have been taken to optimize your technologies, you can’t always avoid IT downtime. It’s important to plan ahead and assume the worst-case scenario.
Should your business run into an IT crisis, you need to have a strong recovery plan that enables you to identify and resolve the cause of the issue as quickly as possible. Once you have created a recovery plan, put it to the test so that you know it works effectively.
Update Your Software
Outdated software is an easy target for hackers. It’s also more likely to freeze, crash, or break down, especially when multiple users are on the platform at once. By updating your software, you can reduce vulnerabilities and block cybersecurity breaches.
Most unique software has a built-in automated update option. Make sure this is activated if you don’t want to manually update all of your computers. If you have an in-house IT team or external support team, they can perform regular maintenance checks to identify when your software requires an update.
It’s also necessary to update your hardware regularly. Some newer programs and applications might not work properly on outdated hardware, and older technologies are often more prone to failure.
