Why Quick IT Response Times are Critical for Your Business
What are you going to do if you get into work tomorrow and find that a pipe broke in the ceiling and your computers/servers are flooded and dead?
What would you do if a cybercriminal used ransomware to lock you out of the applications and files you need to run your business?
What course of action would you take if a negligent employee “accidentally” dumped their coffee into your server?
It doesn’t matter what caused the event. The question is, how quickly can you get back on your feet and get back to business, right?
Let’s talk for a minute about what you lose if you don’t have an IT team that responds quickly and efficiently to your distress call.
Money is the First Casualty of a Slow Response to an IT Incident
Do the math. Take what you are paying your employees every hour to sit around and wait for your IT guy to wake up and show up. Then, add the cost of your lost productivity for those hours. You’re already in the tens of thousands, right? It doesn’t take long for even a small business to rack up significant financial losses while waiting for IT support.
Client Satisfaction is the Next to Go
While most clients understand business and are okay with a little delay here and there, any significant delay can and will put a strain on your relationships with your clients. When client satisfaction slips and that trust begins to erode, those once reliable clients begin to look to other companies for their supply of the goods and services you once provided to them.
Employee Morale Follows Client Satisfaction in the Downward Spiral
While there are certainly some employees that are more than happy to sit around all day doing nothing, most people want to be productive and to feel like they are contributing to the success of the business. So what happens when your IT support guy is slow in responding to issues that cause downtime? Employees get discouraged.
Why?
Because they were already under pressure to get tasks/projects completed, now, their timeframe has been limited, and their access to applications and data is non-existent. Employees complain when they don’t have the tools to get things done.
Your Business Reputation and Your Investment are the Last Victims of a Slow IT Support Response
Think about everything that you have on the line with your business. Whether you are the owner with your life’s work wrapped up in the enterprise or an employee with stock options, a hit to the company’s reputation puts your profitability at risk. Here’s a simple fact: Delays in the resolution of IT incidents have resulted in the closure of thousands of businesses over the years.
Fact #2 Global cybercrime is predicted to be a $10.5 trillion dollar business by 2025.
The question is not, “Are we being targeted?” The question is, “Is your incident response good enough and quick enough to keep you from suffering the consequences of an attack?”
What to Do?
Now that we’ve established that extended downtime resulting from a slow IT response can be extremely detrimental to your business, let’s figure out how to avoid that pain. Managed IT Services providers take a different approach from the traditional, “You call, we’ll come and fix it” IT support teams. Managed IT Services is a holistic, proactive IT support model that continuously manages, maintains, monitors, and secures your IT assets. Managed IT Services providers deliver this top-end IT strategy within an easily-budgeted monthly payment structure.
Partnering with (company) for proactive IT management and fast critical response is your best defense against the debilitating impact of IT downtime.