Research has shown that downtime can cost companies $5,600 per minute on average. If you experience frequent downtime, this can have catastrophic consequences for your business. All companies should know how to take steps to prevent downtime, but if you’re yet to feel the true impact, you should think about these five steps to get ahead of the issue before it happens to you. 

Upgrade Your Systems

Upgrading your systems is one of the most reliable business improvements you can carry out. All upgrades make your system and network more robust and also help to add further upgrades in the future. Your business will also benefit from staying ahead of the curve, meaning it can attract better talent and even more investment as people will trust your ability to notice when your company needs some crucial TLC to maintain its performance and success. 

Use Consistent Monitoring

You know you cannot stay glued to the network information at all times, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. Employing Outsourced IT Support firms can help you avoid significant downtime as these services can act quickly as soon as they recognize an issue. Rather than wake up to a disaster where your website or other platforms have been down overnight, you won’t notice an issue until you receive a report that – hopefully – it will not happen again. 

Have a Backup Network 

Hopefully, you’ll never need to rely on your backup network, but having one in place is crucial just in case something happens. This network can help you maintain traffic to your website and allows your network to operate as normal without any mistakes or further problems. For your customers and clients, they may not notice there is anything wrong, and it gives your IT support team time to fix the main issue and get your usual network back online. 

Train Your Employees 

You can have the most robust systems in place, but these will not be effective without proper cybersecurity training for your employees. Just a single mistake can cause significant downtime if someone manages to break through your firewalls and security systems, so regular training about recognizing phishing attempts and encouraging regular password changes will avoid the most common issues. 

Test For Potential Issues 

Testing for potential issues can help you identify what is most likely to happen. Once you understand this, you should have no trouble taking the best route to keep it from happening to your business. However, as breaches can become more sophisticated, run these tests regularly. It will benefit your business if you carry out risk assessment tests each month so you can stay up to date. If you notice anything unusual, you should be able to trace it back to the source and send out information to employees notifying them about what has occurred. 

Staying Online

All companies use an online model, so staying online and enabling clients, suppliers, and others to access your platform is essential. By taking these steps, you can keep your business online throughout a range of issues and prevent substantial downtime that could ruin your business.