In a split second, without warning, disaster can strike your computers, networking, servers, software, and other elements of your work environment – leaving you crippled and unable to perform.
Sometimes, we can pick up on warning signs and take action in the nick of time. Whether it’s a virus, a hacker, a piece of unsupported software, or an obsolete piece of hardware, bad things will happen.
Here are three reasons why you should take advantage of preventative maintenance – and nip the problem in the bud before you have one.
Downtime Is Extremely Expensive
How much money does your business make each hour that it is supposed to operate, but can’t?
Last year, businesses in North America lost 70.6 million person hours. That’s over 400 hours on average per company per year. You can imagine how much that would cost – and that’s just considering labor costs. Once you include lost opportunity costs, customer service costs, damaged reputation, supply chain disruption, and other negative impacts, the cost grows exponentially.
Every hour that your network doesn’t function costs your business money. It is far less expensive to mitigate these problems before they become larger, costlier problems that take longer to fix and cause more disruptions.
Your Data Is Exceptionally Vulnerable
As technology grows, so do opportunities for havoc when it comes to the most fragile and valuable component of your network – its data.
Imagine what would happen if critical data became corrupted, stolen, lost, or otherwise compromised. For most businesses, that could not only expose them to financial consequences, but could also have legal compliance repercussions.
Preventative maintenance includes testing your backups on a scheduled basis to make ensure your data is being backed up, secure, and duplicated onsite and offsite for maximum protection. It can also help maintain your systems so security vulnerabilities are identified as they occur – not as they are exploited.
Your Systems Have Critical Points of Failure
Finally, how your infrastructure operations may be at risk due to unseen-but-present points of failure, or weak spots in the process.
Preventative maintenance can identify weak links in your IT infrastructure and review them before they have a chance to break, causing damage to the rest of your system.
This typically includes:
- System health checks that take care of old, unused files, streamline processes, free up resources, and boost your overall productivity by identifying warnings and critical errors that may otherwise go unnoticed without a maintenance plan and monitoring software in place
- Security health checks that routinely sweep and monitor your systems for harmful internal and external behavior, vulnerabilities, unpatched software, undefended ports, ineffective firewalls, attempts to penetrate your defenses, and other signs of security risks
- Hardware reviews that take a look at your physical equipment – computers, networking, storage, servers – and ensure they are updated and performing as expected, while assisting with forecasting replacement timeframes and budgeting
There are plenty of reasons why preventative maintenance is not only a wise idea for any business, but a must. Talk with us today for more info on how you can set up preventative maintenance for your own systems and guard them against the unknown and unforeseen.