It is often difficult for us to gauge the importance of technology in our daily business operations. This difficulty doesn’t stem from the complexity of the technologies but rather from the ubiquity of the technologies we use.
From your point of sales system to your smartphone, from your network attached storage device to cloud infrastructure, technology has become a necessity for all modern businesses. All these technology solutions increase the productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness of business operations and communication at a scale that would otherwise be impossible.
The cost of IT can broadly be divided into the following categories:
Hardware – from laptops and smartphones to networks and servers.
Software and services – including applications, SaaS, and cloud
Personnel – salary, hiring, training
Interruptions
According to a survey by Robert Half Technology, U.S. office workers on average waste 22 minutes each day dealing with IT-related issues. This translates to more than 91 hours per year spent dealing with IT issues by each employee.
Here is the math:
22 minutes/day x 5 days/week x 50 weeks/year = 5,500 minutes or 91.67 hours/year
If our average hourly rate per employee is $30 per hour, then
Cost of lost time = 91.67 hours/year x $30/hour = $2,750/year per employee
If we have 10 employees, just the lost time can cost us $27,500 every year. OK, now we are getting somewhere. We have a dollar value that we can associate with interruptions.
COST OF DOWNTIME FOR THE COMPANY
The interruptions we calculated above should not be confused with a company-wide downtime caused by larger events such as network outage or ransomware attacks. Such downtime has a much severe impact on the business, especially if there is no business continuity or data backup plan. Prolonged or frequent downtimes don’t just negatively impact your revenue, they also tarnish your reputation and diminish trust.
HOW TO REDUCE THE COST OF IT?
The cost of unmanaged IT and downtime is surprisingly high. But it is something that can be addressed rather easily. The good news is that if we address the lost time, the opportunity cost will also be cut down.
Properly managed IT operations will:
Make your IT system less prone to downtime
Keep your business will be better prepared to handle emergencies, and
Ensure your business operations will be able to resume swiftly
