From working with many customers to help keep their critical databases up and running we have come up with the top 6 reasons for putting Database Availability at the top of your priority list. In this blog we look at our top reason – Lost sales revenue:
Lost Sales Revenue has the number one spot because it is the biggest fear related to database downtime. It is a major concern for online retailers in particular. If customers cannot access goods and services online then purchases are hindered resulting in lost revenue. Similarly in the banking sector where revenue is generated through credit card transaction fees and trading fees, if transactions cannot take place, revenue cannot be earned.
The VISA card payment system went down across Europe in June this year, meaning that thousands of customers faced difficulty when trying to use their VISA cards and hundreds of small businesses were left without credit card services. According to a report from FT.com one café owner in London feared a loss of £3,000 because customer’s cards were declined.
Amazon was the unfortunate headline star of one of the most famous online retailer outages a few years ago. When Amazon.com went down for approximately 30 minutes in 2013 they lost a reported $66,240 per minute.
In another example from 2012 the UK mobile operator O2 experienced two separate faults due to issues with its Central User Database. In July 2012 millions of customers were unable to call, text or use mobile internet services for more than 24 hours. As a result the company was forced to offer subscribers a 10% discount on their bill and subsequently decided to spend £10m to replace the central User Database.
There is a huge amount of research available about how much an IT outage can cost an organisation. Estimates range from £70,000 an hour to over £40 million in a year.
With this kind of threat to the bottom-line it is vital for CIOs and IT Management to put Database Availability front and centre of their plans for maintaining IT systems.
Find out more in our white paper or take a look at our Database Availability consultancy services.