In today’s business environment, very few companies can afford internet downtime. It used to be an inconvenience when the internet wasn’t working, but these days it has become a critical element in how companies interact with clients, suppliers and co-workers and do business on a daily basis. Despite this, it seems that not many businesses are actually taking steps to minimise this downtime which can end up being very costly, especially when compared to having redundancy in place.

 

Say for example that you are a small business that employs 10 staff with an average hourly wage of $30. When the internet is down, it could potentially cost you $300 per hour as the business is unable to operate - yet you still need to pay staff to wait around for the time it takes to have the problem resolved. Then when you to take into account additional costs such as lost revenue, costs to recover (i.e. staff catching up on the work they were unable to complete due to the downtime) and additional I.T. support, you can see how the cost to the business can add up quite quickly.

  

Then there are the intangible costs such as client loss or dissatisfaction, lost productivity and damage to your brand – things that aren’t as easily measurable but still impact heavily on your business.

 

When you start doing the sums on what internet downtime can actually cost your business, having a redundancy plan in place may now seem like a more viable solution. Internet redundancy could be achieved in a number of ways and will be dependent on factors such as the size of your business and what alternate technology is available. However, for most SMBs the utilisation of a 4G mobile data connection would be sufficient to keep you running.

 

In most cases, this can be automated so that when your internet does fail, your redundant connection will kick in without you even aware there was a problem. This means the business will be able to continue operating and staff remain productive, focussing on their work rather than congregating around the water cooler complaining about the internet being down again!