Unplanned service downtown costs each enterprise surveyed an average of $21.8 million a year, according to the 2017 Veeam Software Availability Report.
This is up from last year's $16 million and represents a cost increase of 36% year-on-year, says Veeam.
According to Veeam, downtime to services can be caused by cyber attacks, infrastructure failures, network outages and natural disasters, with server outages lasting an average of 85 minutes per incident.
The sixth edition of the company's industry data report, released yesterday, surveyed more than 1 000 senior IT leaders from 24 countries.
In the report, 69% of global enterprises say they feel continuous access to services, referred to as availability, is a requirement for digital transformation; however, the majority of senior IT leaders feel these initiatives are being held back by unplanned downtime of services.
The report notes that almost half of enterprises see a loss of customer confidence as a result of downtime. A further 40% experienced damage to brand integrity, which affected both brand reputation and customer retention.
Looking at internal implications, a third of respondents see diminished employee confidence and 28% have experienced a diversion of project resources to 'clean up' the mess, says Veeam.
Peter McKay, president and COO of Veeam Software, says: "Today, immediacy is king and consumers have zero tolerance for downtime, be it of a business application or in their personal lives. Companies are laser-focused on delivering the best user experience and whether they realise it or not, at the heart of this is availability."
Although South African organisations were not surveyed for this year's report, Claude Schuck, Veeam regional manager for Africa, says the fact that the cost of downtime has escalated should speak volumes and be a concern for local organisations.
"That should be motivation enough for organisations to say, how much loss can we actually afford? And that is without brand reputation damage and physical rands and cents."
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