How An IT Alerting System Reduces Downtime, Reputational Damage

The reality for most businesses is that an IT outage is likely to happen at some time. The IT service desk needs to be prepared to shorten the response time and minimize the business impact.

With an IT alerting tool, you’re able to pre-configure groups of the key team members who need to be notified in case of specific incidents, enabling you to alert them all with one click.

Sending the right message to the right people at the right time reduces the number of supports tickets that are generated. The fewer unnecessary tickets generated, the faster the IT service desk can respond to incidents and restore service.

Plus, with escalation paths, alerts will continue to ping anyone across designated channels until the message is acknowledged. You don’t have to worry whether an appropriate team member received a message. If an on-call resource doesn’t pick up, the incident alert automatically goes to the next team member, so no time is wasted getting the issue to someone who can address it.

When it comes to reducing downtime, even small improvements can make a big impact. At an average cost of $5,600 per minute of downtime, a 30-minute reduction equates to $168,000 saved.

Need more proof to show business leaders outside of IT that reducing downtime has a significant impact on the company’s bottom line? Consider how downtime affects employees and their productivity. An article on CIO.com recommends using this equation:

Cost of downtime: (1,000 impacted employees) X ($20 average hourly rate) X (50% productivity impact factor) = $10,000 per hour of productivity cost impact

Quantifying the financial risk of downtime is critical to making the business case for an IT alerting system. But don’t forget about the reputational damage. While it’s harder to quantify, an IT outage usually affects customers and can have long-lasting consequences.

Don’t let downtime derail your business. Be proactive about minimizing downtime with an IT alerting tool that helps you engage the right people quickly.

To learn more about how to use IT strategically for your next merger, download our new eBook, “5 IT Alerting System Features That Improve Incident Management.”

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You are well on your way toward protecting your staff and organization.

Take the next step toward protecting your organization by learning more about emergency notification systems and the vital role they play in your emergency preparedness plan.