Nowadays, it’s standard practice to have an IT expert watching over your network and infrastructure 24/7 and the reasons are quite plausible. On average, SMEs suffer 45 minutes of downtime every week and the resulting losses are too significant to ignore. By estimation, businesses lose £500 (USD 525.32) in productivity (per employee) and approximately $5,600 in potential sales revenue for every minute of an outage.
24/7 network monitoring can help soften the impact of unpredicted downtime by projecting underlying micro issues before they explode into larger, more devastating outcomes. Thankfully, proactive monitoring often comes as an add-on service delivered along with other IT support tasks by your strategic IT partner.
In this post, we dive deeper into the three key benefits of 24/7 monitoring for your business.
Key Takeaways
- Downtime is costly for business. With proactive monitoring, the potential losses to be incurred by the business can be minimized.
- 24/7 monitoring is part of a wider proactive maintenance approach, where issues detected are fixed early.
- For those business owners desperate to maintain customer satisfaction, uphold a good reputation, and exploit every sales opportunity, 24/7 monitoring with your strategic IT partner is a good place to start.
Why is 24/7 Monitoring So Important for Businesses?
It’s no secret that small businesses are always faced with the constant threat that is uncertainty. At any given time, your network and equipment can fail in its operation, crippling productive business activities for hours on end. Even more horrifying to think about is the dreadful aftermath of a cybersecurity attack, which often leads to a prolonged outage that takes forever to fix.
Without a means to spot these issues in time, they may wreak havoc on your business. That’s where 24/7 monitoring comes in.
Managed service providers in Washington DC offer 24/7 monitoring, meaning continuous surveillance of a network or system to detect anomalies and threats in real-time. Most MSPs integrate advanced monitoring tools with human support to monitor your network every second, every day. As expected, business managers are made aware of every issue, no matter how insignificant it may seem to operations.
Benefits of 24/7 Monitoring
The greatest benefit of having your network monitored 24/7 is the ability to spot potential issues and hence prepare quick remedies before things escalate. Upon deployment, typical monitoring systems are able to pick up on your system usage patterns – and abnormal activities thereafter trigger alerts informing your IT technician about forthcoming issues.
In the end, business managers are able to prepare comprehensive rapid response plans with early detection.
Additional benefits include:
1. Enhanced Business Operations
Unfortunately, no business operation runs risk-free. What you can do, however, is minimize the impact of potential risks with 24/7 monitoring.
Let’s take cybersecurity, for example. Every 14 seconds, a company falls victim to a ransomware attack. What makes ransomware incidents tricky to maneuver is that human IT experts don’t always see them coming. Advanced cybersecurity monitoring tools run 24/7, actively scanning for vulnerabilities in real time. This feature alone adds to the many values of 24/7 cybersecurity monitoring tools as a worthy shield against company-wide breaches.
Productivity is yet another key area that can benefit from 24/7 monitoring. Healthy systems breed the perfect environment for efficient team collaboration and customer satisfaction. An unstable network, on the other hand, causes inconvenient disruption that later leads to employee and customer frustration. At this point, taking feedback in the form of downtime complaints can help alleviate further aggravation.
24/7 monitoring tools help detect issues that may deliver a damaging blow to your operations. That way, you no longer have to address downtime-induced disruptions after impact. Instead, you’re always certain that your employees have access to the resources they need to do their job effectively at all times.
2. Cost Reduction
Downtime experienced by employees can last 15 minutes to 1 hour, during which over half of employees tend to get distracted by personal business. Automatically, this results in losses in worktime productivity. On top of that, an unmonitored system increases the risks of cyberattacks, which could mean even higher costs in damage control and system repairs.
Additionally, without constant monitoring, the tell-tale signs of damage within your systems remain obscured from your watchful eye. Tech issues become harder to find, and eventually, downtime strikes when your equipment stops working without warning.
Thankfully, unforeseen business costs are easy to predict, mitigate, and even avoid altogether with 24/7 monitoring. Your MSP’s monitoring software runs constant checks on the health and performance of your network and equipment behind the scenes. That way, you’re always in the know regarding potential issues that might cripple operations and their scope.
3. Enhanced Cybersecurity Posture
Advanced monitoring tools further strengthen your security posture by providing real-time updates about the health status of your network. Immediately upon the detection of suspicious activity, you can count on your monitoring tool to alert your IT department and possibly recommend quick action and ensure your company’s data and sensitive information are safeguarded.
Feature-packed monitoring tools may contain additional features that help keep sensitive information safe from unauthorized access.
- Real-time threat detection – With round-the-clock monitoring, any unusual network behavior or unauthorized access attempts are detected almost instantly. Potential security breaches are identified promptly, allowing for immediate response and mitigation.
- Proactive risk management – 24/7 monitoring helps identify vulnerabilities in your system before they can be exploited by malicious actors. Scrambling to neutralize active attacks doesn’t cut it; instead, you need to stay one step ahead of the attacker.
- Incident response and recovery – In the event of a security incident, you will rely on every minor detail to understand the scope and extent of an attack. 24/7 monitoring tools store detailed logs that can expedite the investigation and containment of security breaches.
Needless to say, there exist several other benefits of monitoring for businesses. By shining a light on key operations, business managers can rest assured that no potential issue goes undetected with 24/7 monitoring.
Conclusion
As businesses migrate to the cloud, one thing remains clear. There will be a constant need for proactive monitoring for sustainable operations, growth, and enhanced security. Ultimately, incorporating 24/7 monitoring in managed IT services is crucial for businesses to stay competitive and efficient in their day-to-day operations.
