New survey reveals nearly one-fifth of businesses lose revenue during email downtime

On Jan. 26, 2009, e-mail went down at the White House for eight hours, causing significant panic among the White House staff about what vital information may be delayed or missed. Their concerns were not unfounded; e-mail has become our lifeline to the outside world and is essential to getting business done - even at the Oval Office. When e-mail goes down, business comes to a screeching halt. And in today’s economy, that’s something no one can afford.

For most companies, success is inevitably linked to e-mail and to availability of e-mail. Client contacts and proposals are sent back and forth, up-to-date financial information is shared, and vital supply chain exchanges take place. Without e-mail, it is not an exaggeration to say that businesses can lose revenue or productivity, or even risk harm to their corporate reputations or client relationships. In fact, a recent Neverfail survey of 220 managers and directors at mid-size companies worldwide revealed that one-fifth of businesses lose revenue during e-mail downtime and one-fourth experience significant loss in employee productivity.

The same study showed that 34 percent of businesses would potentially damage their company or customer relationships if e-mail went down, while just under 10 percent would be unable to maintain regulatory compliance, such as Sarbanes-Oxley or HIPAA. These compelling statistics shed light on the unprecedented pressure on IT departments to ensure continuous uptime for e-mail and other mission-critical applications. With the situation being further complicated by the elimination of IT positions at companies across the world, and with the economy suffering its worst downturn since the Great Depression, companies should be looking at how they would deal with a serious e-mail outage.

From Main Street to Wall Street

E-mail is ubiquitous. It is on our computers, our phones and PDAs, and no one has just one account anymore. E-mail is critical to our personal and business lives and is probably the most essential technology used by businesses of all industries and sizes, from the mom and pop store on Main Street to the global enterprise. The impact and reach e-mail has is impressive. Just take a look at some of the responses to the study, when participants were asked to give an example of how their business would be impacted if e-mail - or another critical application - were not available:

Sign up for ITworld's Daily newsletter
Follow ITworld on Twitter @IT_world

• Email
• Print
• Share
  • Slashdot
  • Digg
  • Stumble
  • Reddit
  • Newsvine