There are many reasons that a company might experience unanticipated downtime. Whether caused by a storm or flood, a cyberattack or hack, a network outage or power failure, or simple human error, downtime that is unexpected and unplanned can throw even the most organized business into chaos.

Luckily, companies can plan and prepare for these events. The most important steps are to back up data, and create a business continuity plan. An experienced IT provider, such as Vaultas, can help your company determine exactly what you need to avoid the negative effects of such an unplanned scenario.

So what are the costs of unexpected downtime? Mission Critical Magazine examined the potential outcomes.

Data Loss and Data Breaches

If your business experiences an outage, will you be able to get your data back? Maybe – depending on when it was last backed up. Any data not securely saved before the outage began may be lost forever. Further, during downtime, employees may move to unsecured third-party tools and services, putting sensitive data at risk.

Disruptions to Productivity

When employees don’t have access to data, tools and services, they can’t do their jobs. And even if the outage or interruption ends quickly, studies show that it often takes a significant amount of time for employees to get back in the work mindset.

Lost Revenue

The unsurprising outcome here is that lost data and decreased productivity is likely to have significant financial costs. Even if a company recovers quickly, the effects of unanticipated downtime can shake customer and investor confidence, causing long-term damage to the bottom line.

Don’t let unanticipated downtime catch your company off guard. Contact Vaultas today.

Vaultas is a premier provider of IT solutions, providing data storage and backup, disaster recovery and business continuity services, hosting, colocation, cloud storage, data center consulting, internet connections, hosted PBX and VOIP, and more. Our data centers are located in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Alexandria and St. Cloud, MN, and Milwaukee, WI. Contact us to get started.