There can be no denying; today, most American customers like shopping online – and for a good reason. Online shopping offers convenience to clients. Given the round-of-the-clock nature of today’s business world, uptime plays a crucial role in the growth and success of a business enterprise. This is why business owners constantly look for effective ways to avoid network downtime.

How Network Downtime Can Affect Your Company

Network downtime can hurt the growth and success of your business enterprise in various ways. They include the following:

• Lost Sales

One of the major goals of any business organization is to maximize its sales. If a company increases its sales, it can boost its revenues. Therefore, it won’t have any problems when paying for overheads and other operational costs. Also, when a company increases sales, it can remain afloat and improve its profitability. But this might not happen if a business experience regular downtime.

Most businesses use online platforms to connect with customers in the modern digital era. Network downtime means that clients can’t access your business. Therefore, they won’t buy your products or services, leading to lost sales.

• Decreased Productivity

Like connecting with customers, companies use online tools to communicate and complete tasks. You might be using online communication software to give instructions to employees. Similarly, you might be utilizing a specific application for project management and monitoring the work of your staff. You can’t communicate with employees if you can’t access your business network. Henceforth, they won’t do their work which leads to lost productivity.

• Reputation Damage

Another effect of network downtime is damage to a brand’s reputation. Customers expect to find you or your services whenever they visit your store. When a customer can’t connect with you because of network downtime, this affects your sales. Yet that isn’t the end of it.

Frequent downtimes can have a long-term effect on your reputation too. Disappointed customers can leave negative reviews on your website. This will harm your reputation and turn away potential clients.

Dealing With Network Downtime

As detailed in the previous section, network downtime could ruin your business in many ways. For this reason, you should find ways to overcome this challenge. Here are some strategies you can employ to handling network downtimes in your business: 

• Hire A Network Expert 

One of the effective tips for dealing with the challenges of network downtimes is to find IT services in Chicago if you’re in Illinois. Many of these companies offer network services. The right company can assist you with risk assessment so that you can get insights into risk posture for your business systems. And it’ll help address emerging threat issues and guide you in implementing effective technologies for improving your online security.  

Apart from that, a managed IT company can offer remote monitoring services. This involves supervising your systems to ensure they function optimally. Besides, the hired company can help detect any potential network issue and provide preventive measures before the problem can occur.  

There are several factors to consider when choosing a managed IT service provider for your business. Yet the most important thing is its ability to make sure all your systems are up and running. If you want to find a provider who can meet your up-time requirements, you can consider remote IT services in Seattle or any other similar firm.

• Invest In A Backup Power

Your network system will ultimately go down when there’s a power outage. Additionally, you must note that a total power failure at the remote site can affect your tools and equipment even after the power is back. This is why you need to invest in a backup power solution.

The most common backup power solution is commercial standby generators. This helps power your systems when the regular power goes offline. Further, you can invest in an uninterrupted power supply solution. This provides a backup battery you can use to power your systems. As such, your networks will always remain up and running, thus ensuring reduced downtimes in your business.

• Invest In Quality Network Equipment 

Today, most business owners are utilizing any available opportunity to reduce costs. For that reason, some have invested in low-quality network equipment.

While it’s true you can save money by purchasing cheap network tools, it can potentially increase downtime in your business. This is true because low-quality equipment is more prone to technical glitches than quality equipment.

When selecting network equipment for your business, ensure it’s of high quality. It’ll help minimize network downtime in your business. Examples of these tools include routers, servers, and cabling systems.

In many cases, the price can help determine network equipment quality. Nevertheless, this shouldn’t be your guiding factor. Some vendors on the market attach high prices to their tools to make clients believe they’re of high quality, which isn’t true. Therefore, you should devise other ways to ensure you purchase quality tools.

For instance, you can visit the vendor’s website comment section to see what past clients say about the tools. If the network equipment is of good quality, you’ll ultimately know from the previous clients’ comments.  

• Regularly Update Systems

One of the many things that can cause network downtime in your business is cybersecurity attacks.

Unfortunately, what increases online attacks in businesses is outdated systems. Before attacking a company, hackers always scan old systems or software to determine their vulnerability. This implies you can safeguard your business against cybersecurity attacks and reduce network downtimes by simply updating your systems.

While that’s the case, manually updating your systems can be overwhelming and time-consuming. Fortunately, you can install automatic systems update software to ensure your systems are always up to date. This goes a long way in reducing the number of vulnerable access points in your business, thus minimizing network downtime.

Takeaway

Reducing network downtime should be a top priority for your business to operate efficiently for the foreseeable future. Reduced network downtime can help increase sales, boost productivity, and improve your brand’s reputation, among other benefits.

Partnering with a managed IT service provider, investing in a power backup solution, purchasing quality network equipment, and regularly updating systems are effective strategies to minimize network downtime in your business enterprise.