Many of today’s businesses are reliant on digital technology. When technology stops working, it can lead to hours and sometimes days of downtime. This downtime could result in unhappy customers and a huge loss in revenue.

Pretty much every business is at risk of tech downtime. A notable recent example is Facebook’s six hour outage, which is believed to have cost the company over $60 million. Some companies are definitely more at risk due to relying more on technology. Of course, not taking measures to safeguard tech from disaster can also put you at risk. This post poses a few questions to determine just how much at risk your company is.

Are You Clinging Onto Old Tech?

Clinging onto old technology out of convenience could be putting you at a greater risk of downtime.

Old machinery can be prone to wear and tear – if you’ve already experienced problems as a result of worn parts, you may want to consider whether it’s time to replace your machinery. This could be particularly important with key machinery such as a coffee machine in a coffee bar or a tractor on a farm.

You should also be careful of using old software. Software that is no longer supported by the vendor could be more prone to bugs and could be vulnerable to new viruses and cyberattack methods. Always replace software if support is about to run out.

Who Is Maintaining and Monitoring Your Tech?

You can keep technology in good working condition by monitoring and maintaining it. In many businesses, this is a task that is neglected.

Make sure that someone qualified is looking after your tech. You may be able to train employees to monitor and maintain tech. In other cases, it could be better to hire or outsource an expert. For example, business IT support is often worth outsourcing when it comes to monitoring and maintaining your IT infrastructure. Don’t hire an employee with limited IT knowledge to handle this task.

What Backup Solutions Do You Have?

When tech fails, what backup solutions have you got in place? Backup solutions are one of the best ways to prevent downtime. An obvious example is backing up data on a cloud server. This ensures that if your local server fails, you don’t lose all your data and you can get up and running again fast.

Nowadays, it’s worth having multiple forms of cloud backup just in case a cloud server encounters a problem. On top of backing up your data, consider investing in a backup power option such as a backup generator in the event of a power cut. Backup wi-fi connections can also be useful if there are internet provider issues or if your router fails.

Have You Practiced an IT Emergency Drill?

To help prevent downtime, you and your employees need to know how to react in the event of a tech disaster. What happens if you’re targeted by ransomware? What happens if there’s a power cut?

You should come up with an emergency plan and drill it with your staff. In the event of a ransomware attack, you and your staff need to know who to contact and how to switch to your backup data (while making sure that this isn’t infiltrated too). It could be worth consulting experts to help you come up with an emergency response plan.