Proactively monitoring your IT infrastructure for errors requires an outlay of capital and resources, and so it can be tempting just to leave it until a problem actually happens.
It can also be tempting to put preventative maintenance on hold when you are dealing with things that seem more important at the time, like implementing a new project or perhaps dealing with a problem.
Make a priority out of proactively monitoring your IT infrastructure. You will find that there are a number of benefits and that your company will save money and reputation into the bargain.
Less downtime
If you consistently monitor your IT infrastructure, you will catch problems, or the potential for problems, before they turn into something big enough to escalate into downtime and impact your business.
Downtime can cost businesses a significant amount of money. If you are an e-commerce business relying on a website to take orders, every minute that website is down is a minute where your customers can’t place an order and might decide to visit a competitor’s website instead.
If you have employees, every minute that your infrastructure is down is a minute where they can’t be going about their work. The actual cost of IT downtime depends on the company’s turnover in question, but the average cost has been estimated at $5,600 per minute, and some businesses losing as much as $540,000 per hour due to IT downtime.
Increased trust from customers
One of the biggest digital risks is that your customer data will be breached by a cyberattack. If this happens, businesses can be liable for fines and damages, not to mention having to quickly work to recover the data and secure their systems again.
As well as the initial cost and effort, a data breach can have a lasting effect on a company’s reputation. If customer’s data has been lost once by a company are, the chances are that it will take them a long time to trust them again. Not only this, but the company’s reputation amongst potential future customers will be impacted too.
Improved customer service
Customers expect to be able to make their order, view their account, or ask their question on their schedule.
If they go to your website and find that they can’t do what they need to, or call your contact center and find that the agent can’t give them the information that they want because their systems are down, this will be frustrating for them and not the service that they want to receive.
Less out of hours work
Allowing your IT services to be monitored by a managed services provider means that there is less likely to be a failure, requiring your staff to work out of hours to fix an urgent issue.
Managed services providers will monitor your systems 24 hours a day and resolve any issues as they occur, as well as carrying out future-proofing so that your staff aren’t required to work out of hours at extra cost to you and at a detriment to their wellbeing.
