Discover how Warrington small and medium businesses can prepare for digital disruptions, reduce downtime, and improve overall resilience during bad tech days.
Is your Warrington business ready for a bad tech day?
If you run a small or medium business (SMB) in Warrington, you likely depend on technology for the day-to-day running of your company. Whether you’re based in Golden Square or Omega Business Park, you probably use cloud computing and online payment systems daily. But how prepared are you for a bad tech day?
Digital disruptions are more common than you think. The software you rely on could suffer a prolonged outage, impacting your day’s trade. Your website could go offline at any time, resulting in no online orders. Or, you could lose your internet connection, causing staff to lose access to critical systems.
Digital disruptions are now part of business operations
As more businesses across the UK become reliant on technology, the frequency of digital disruptions also increases.
Recent studies estimate that UK businesses now lose £3.7 billion annually due to internet failures alone. That amount reflects a 400% increase since 2018.
Digital disruptions such as connectivity issues are no longer an occasional problem. They’re a serious business risk that can cost you significantly.
Unfortunately, most disruptions are completely out of your control. One second, your systems can be functioning perfectly. Next, an outage can bring your business to a halt.
Most SMBs overlook digital disruption planning
A new Economist Impact study found that only one in four organisations responds well to real disruption events. These findings suggest that the majority of organisations do not have digital disruption plans in place.
Most SMBs assume that outages only impact bigger businesses. However, smaller firms face greater risk because they have fewer resources to respond when systems fail.
Many lack a formal continuity plan. Major companies have strict recovery steps in place and a dedicated IT team to follow them. SMBs, on the other hand, often deal with disruptions on an ad hoc basis. You leave your team to troubleshoot problems as they arise, which can create further delays to your business operations.
When your payment system goes down, there is no internal team to call. When your email provider has an outage, you may have no secondary way to reach clients. A major retailer absorbs a three-hour outage, while a small Warrington business may not recover the lost revenue at all.
Practical steps every Warrington business should take
You don’t need expensive technology to improve your resilience in the event of a bad tech day.
By forming a few practical habits, you’ll be able to keep your business operations moving when your systems are down.
1. Keep offline copies of critical information
If you rely on the cloud for storage, critical information may become unavailable during outages.
Keeping secure offline copies of customer contact details, supplier information, procedures, and emergency contacts can keep your business operating.
To keep the information safe, keep offline copies in secure, password-protected databases.
2. Test your backups
Creating backup documentation is only half the job. In emergencies, employees may find that your backup documents are out-of-date or incomplete.
It’s important to schedule routine checks to verify that files and operational records are accurate and quickly recoverable.
3. Know how to check whether a service is down
Don’t make assumptions when a platform stops working. Before you start troubleshooting your own systems, check whether the problem lies with the third-party platform.
You can use a “website down” checker to see whether the platform is currently accessible to users. You can determine if a specific application is currently online or offline, and discover what the current issues are.
4. Establish recovery procedures
Uncertainty is one of the biggest time and money wasters when it comes to bad tech days. With no clear recovery procedures in place, employees simply don’t know what to do when technology stops working.
You must define:
- Who to contact when a specific system goes down
- What systems to prioritise
- How to continue serving customers
Ensure staff are familiar with these procedures and know where to find them during an outage.
5. Create backup communication channels
When your main communication channel becomes unavailable, it becomes impossible to update both employees and customers.
A secondary communication method, such as a messaging app or secondary email account, can ensure employees receive important updates.
Prepare for outages to avoid costly downtime
No Warrington business can avoid digital disruption completely. Outages, connectivity issues, and software failures are going to happen. As a business owner, the only thing you can influence is how you respond to the downtime. To respond effectively, have a backup plan in place.
Setting up recovery procedures prepares you for an outage and gives you an advantage over your competitors. While your rivals lose money scrambling to identify the problem, you can continue operating with confidence.
