Disaster recovery began to emerge in the late 1980s and has evolved significantly over the ensuing decades. Technology innovation has allowed small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to avail themselves of high-quality data protection previously only available to large corporations. However, recent disaster recovery statistics prove that contemporary businesses still face the risk of catastrophic disruption due to a variety of potential threats, ranging from ransomware attacks to violent weather. All businesses rely heavily on their data, and IT disruptions are often too costly to overcome. Should they suffer downtime, companies will experience production stoppages, revenue losses, and paid employees who cannot work.

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Beyond IT vulnerabilities, fires and natural disasters remain ominous threats with the ability to close down a business. Given the seriousness of the situation and the consequences of outages and downtime, everyone should understand these recent statistics.

  1. From 2019 through 2022, 96% of organizations experienced at least one incidence of downtime. A 2023 study by LogicMonitor reports that, globally, 96% of IT managers and decision-makers experienced at least one outage in the past three years – although most suffered more than one incident.  (Source)
  2. Brief outages may be an inconvenience, but when downtime causes operations to cease, the financial and reputational consequences are more deeply felt.  According to a 2022 report from the Uptime Institute, 20% of organizations surveyed reported experiencing a severe outage in the past three years. (Source)
  3. The average downtime for U.S. companies after a ransomware attack is nearly three weeks. Although the best-prepared companies can weather short outages, less prepared businesses can be out for days or even weeks, becoming more damaging by the hour.  This average downtime represents an increase from the beginning of 2020 when the average number of days lost after an incident was 15.  (Source)
  4. For more than 90% of mid-sized and large enterprises, the cost of downtime exceeds $300,000 an hour.  While small businesses don’t lose nearly as much, they can be even more seriously impacted by downtime as they don’t have the leeway and reserves to protect themselves. (Source)
  5. 48% of American businesses have discovered malware infections on their servers, with the potential to corrupt data and crash applications. Because malware is often hidden and can exist without your knowledge, many companies are likely to have experienced malware attacks without realizing it. (Source)
  6. Hardware failures affecting server drives and network devices are the most frequent cause of downtime – when they stop, everything stops. Nearly 25% of companies with outdated or inadequate server hardware suffer from reliability issues and downtime. (Source)
  7. Mistakes are inevitable, but sometimes those mistakes can threaten the operation of the entire business. In fact, 64% of downtime events are associated with human errors, including data loss and device mismanagement. (Source)
  8. It may surprise data center managers to know that only 5% of downtime incidents are caused by natural disasters like floods, fires, and hurricanes. While these possibilities do require careful planning by businesses, they are not very common. The main culprits are hardware failure (55%), human error (22%), and software failure (18%) (Source)
  9. Data breaches overwhelmingly affect small businesses over large companies. In 2022, the incidence of small business breaches was more than double the number in large organizations, likely because larger companies have more ability to purchase the necessary resources and technology to prevent attacks. (Source)
  10. Cyber attacks cause life-altering circumstances, potentially including bankruptcy – especially for small companies that cannot overcome the hit. A recent study reported that 60% of small and midsize businesses that were victims of a cyber attack went out of business entirely within six months.

While the above statistics may seem dire, small business has an affordable and achievable solution in managed services. Alliance IT has the resources to provide the hardware, software, cloud services, and infrastructure you need to protect your business – while enjoying economies of scale and benefitting from a deep bench of professional expertise. If you are a Sarasota SMB looking to prevent downtime and help your company to run more efficiently, call Alliance IT for more information.