When we think of downtime, we tend to think of being snowed into our houses and not being able to make it to work, or perhaps our internet connections failing, making remote productivity impossible. But as we saw with the recent Crowdstrike fiasco, downtime can come in more ways than one, though they may seem related to other broad categories (in this case, technical errors).
Now, no one can protect themselves from all manner of downtime issues at once. Life is too complex and unpredictable for that. Think of all the Japanese businesses that never quite know if an earthquake will harm their monthly operations, accounting for it the best they can with insurance and emergency contingencies.
With that in mind, however, you may wish to consider some of the following three categories of business downtime, and make preparations where possible:
Technical Downtime
This is most likely the first thing that pops into your head when you hear “downtime”. We all had it – your servers crash, your software decides to throw a tantrum, or maybe your entire network just stops connecting and needs to be reset.
So what can you do? Well, having robust backup systems is a start. But it’s also about having a plan B (and C, and D) for when things don’t quite work out. When Crowdstrike happened, airlines were given written tickets to authenticate passengers. If you can curate a backup to the most essential elements, downtime might not be so difficult.
Operational Downtime
Operational downtime can be harder to put your finger on, but it’s still important to plan for. Maybe your team is overwhelmed and productivity grinds to a halt. Or perhaps a key team member is out sick and no one else knows how to do their job.
Tackling this kind of downtime can depend on what you do and how you do it, but streamlining your processes and cross-training your team isn’t a bad place to start. That often means your business can keep running smoothly, even when things aren’t perfect, or when unique issues occur, such as a weather event as we discussed.
Logistical Downtime
If your suppliers can’t deliver, your shipping partner has a meltdown, or maybe there’s a global pandemic that throws the entire supply chain into chaos (don’t worry, we’re sure this would never happen), logistics can be impacted too. Suddenly, you’re stuck with a warehouse full of half-finished products and no way to get them to your customers. Or perhaps you do, but the planning has limited how far you can travel and reach. Using services that help keep you operational such as fhgfueling.com for keeping your trucks on the road, or ensuring backup suppliers are available when you need them can help with a few issues you may not have been expecting, and learn for next time.
With this advice, we hope you can more easily and readily manage and protect yourself from various elements of downtime. You’ll never have a 100% perfection rate of course, but you may just subvert one small issue, and that’s worthwhile.