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Cost assessments break down the immediate loss in sales, but future cost of downtime for SMB’s (small
predicted vulnerabilities and assign a sales can easily be affected by non- businesses) ranges from $137 to $427
dollar value to potential disruption of return customers due to customer per minute and a single disaster can
processes. Cost of disruption ranges dissatisfaction. Other examples cost between $82,200 and $256,000.
from small scale to large scale disaster can include lost orders, failure to While these numbers are seemingly
and will vary in amount due to the meet contractual agreements with much lower, these costs can often
severity of the disaster. Understanding customers and employees time spent have a greater impact on small
potential losses in real dollar value on recovery efforts. businesses in comparison to a larger
quantifies costs of the vulnerabilities company experiencing higher losses.
within the business, allowing your Now, downtime is obviously going to The reason for this is because small
DR solution to be tailored to reflect cost money but exactly how common businesses are more susceptible to
minimal acceptable loss. is it? According to Dunn & Bradstreet, experiencing “business ending” losses
59% of fortune 500 companies due to being more fragile than a larger
Setting the True Cost of experience 1.6 hours of downtime company with a more self-supporting
Downtime with BIA each week. This translates to just over cash flow.
Cost of downtime can vary widely 83 hours per year and leave room for
and will change depending on how large amounts of potential losses. How exactly do we minimize the
severe the disaster is and how long cost of downtime in the event of a
the disruption in continuity lasts. Costs of downtime will also vary disaster? As mentioned previously,
According to Gartner, the average depending on the size of the business. performing a business impact analysis
cost of downtime is $5600 per minute, According to Ponemon Institute’s is the first step in determining your
which can grow for larger companies. Cost of Data Centre Outages report, potential costs of downtime as well as
costs can rise to $17,244 per minute. how your disaster recovery solutions
If a purchasing page goes offline, costs While this number reflects losses for should be constructed. Ensuring your
of downtime will include the direct large scale companies, what can we DR solution is suited for the needs of
loss of immediate sales. It’s been expect to see for a small business? your business will decrease the cost
proven that losses in immediate sales of downtime through the minimizing
do not return and will be sought First, according to a study performed of time of disruption, ensuring
out elsewhere. Not only is there an by IDC on behalf of Carbonite, customers are satisfied with the level

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