What Does Downtime Cost Your Organization?

How expensive is downtime? “The Server is down.”  Yeah, we hate to hear that.  Because downtime is expensive.  But how expensive?  That’s a really important number that we ignore way too much. Downtime.  The thought drives a chill into the heart of CEO’s everywhere. Lost productivity! Unhappy customers! Shop floor at a standstill!

Incredibly expensive, right?

Here’s my question…just how expensive is it?

We all want to minimize downtime.  And we’ll invest money to do that.  Backup equipment, power protection, putting a label saying “don’t press me” next to the power switch. But before we spend a ton of money to prevent downtime (or say no because the cost is too high)… Is it too much to ask what cost we’re trying to prevent?

As a CEO, you (not the IT person) need to lead the charge about what downtime actually costs an organization. What goes into that calculation (I hear you cry)? Honestly, that’s up to you.  Because as CEO, you’re the primary person charged with determining what value things have to the organization.

It can be as simple as payroll costs for folks doing nothing. Or production values. Opportunity costs if customers can’t place orders or your marketing suffers.

And it doesn’t have to be accurate.  But you need to have this number in mind. With it?  You can decide whether the downtime preventions are worth the investment. Without it?  Meh.

Does your organization have a calculation to determine downtime costs?  Here is a link to a site that will help you calculate your downtime cost.

Let us know if we can help! Contact us here!