What Is The Cost Of Downtime?

written by Matt Bullock posted on August 13, 2021

The economy of downtime is unforgiving – it grinds your business to a halt, racks up expenses, and keeps you from getting anything done.

Do you know how much downtime you should expect to deal with, and what it can cost you?

What Is System Downtime?

Downtime is the term used for any period of time in which a computer or computer systems are offline and unavailable. Downtime can occur in a number of situations, all with varying degrees of severity:

• While you wait for the computer to restart in order to fix a problem
• After a power outage knocks out the entire building’s network
• In the fallout of a ransomware attack that encrypts all your company’s data

In a nutshell, downtime occurs whenever you’re trying to use your IT systems, but can’t.

Why Is Downtime Bad?

Downtime isn’t just expensive because you have to get your technology fixed — there’s also the fact that it brings your business’ operations to a halt. If an IT-related or natural disaster occurs and takes critical systems offline, employees will be unable to complete their tasks, yet your normal business expenses will carry on

During that time, you still have to cover all the expenses of running a business without the revenue you would usually generate. Even if downtime does not grind everything to a halt, some of your staff will have to divert themselves from their normal work to mitigate the problem — again reducing productivity.

What Is Average Production Downtime?

Here are some studies showing how much time is lost every day due to IT downtime:

• Average IT Downtime: According to a new survey of U.S. office workers, professionals waste 22 minutes each day, on average, dealing with IT-related issues.
• Average Time To Get Back On Task After An Interruption: A recent study indicated that most people take 23 minutes and 15 seconds to recover from an interruption.

However, average rates of downtime can vary greatly, depending on a number of factors:

• Industry: The more you depend on technology, the more likely you are to encounter downtime. For example, manufacturers encounter 800 hours of downtime every year.
• Size: The larger your business is, the more factors there are at play, and the more likely you are to encounter downtime.
• IT Management Practices: The better managed your IT systems are, the more likely you are to minimize the rate of downtime you experience.
  No matter how much downtime you deal with, one thing we can all agree on is that it’s expensive. Ponemon Institute estimates that every minute of even partial downtime can cost as much as $5,600.

How Is Downtime Cost Calculated?

Let’s assume that your organization is more effective than those in the examples above. You encounter less downtime, it takes you less time to get back on task, and all of this happens less often.

For example, we’ll use 19 minutes a day for average downtime and 10 minutes to get back on task, totaling 29 minutes:

Employee IT Downtime Cost:

• 29 minutes x 5 days week x 52 weeks x 100 employees = 754,000 minutes = 12,566 hours
• $20 avg per hour x 75% of total hours down =9,424 = $188,480
• Benefits/Training 20% additional cost: $37,696

Management IT Downtime Cost:

• $26 avg per hour x 25% of total hours down=3,142 = $81,692
• Benefits/Training 20% additional cost: $16,338
• Total Downtime Cost to Organization: $324,206

In a nutshell? Downtime is expensive.

Accelera IT Solutions Will Minimize Your Downtime

Accelera IT Solutions can equip you with the best technology solutions available in order to keep your business’ infrastructure fast, reliable, and agile. When it comes to virtualization, cloud storage, and business continuity, there is no better solution than those offered by Prodatix and Veeam.

We equip our clients with SiloVault Series NAS devices, complete with robust Veeam software that will help to limit downtime. Get in touch with our team to discover more about the robust business continuity features we can deliver to you.